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“朝廷不是让我隐蔽吗?”“你也不看看,这是什么时候了?!”  
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你从未劳神望一眼苏共20大赫总报告全文 2018-01-19 10:19:14

1956年2月25日星期六凌晨苏共20大(我党20大-2022

年,间隔了66年之久)—— 赫鲁晓夫埋葬斯大林的一天


There's an old saying that "every nation deserves its 

government." I hope that's not true. I believe my great-

grandfather gave Russia its first taste of freedom over 

fear. And I hope that one day Russians will be able to 

embrace that freedom without yearning for the old 

days of totalitarianism and terror.


有句老话说,

有什么样的民族,就 活 该 有什么样的政府。

我希望,未必如此吧  ......

                     ————  妮娜·赫鲁晓娃 ( 1964 - ),赫鲁晓夫同志外孙女

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“ 我爷爷赫鲁晓夫1971年 9/11 去世时,我还是个7岁的小姑娘。”


    The Day Khrushchev Buried Stalin

February 19, 2006| Nina L. Khrushcheva | Nina L. Khrushcheva teaches international affairs at New School 

University in New York. Her latest book, "Visiting Nabokov," is forthcoming from Yale University Press.

赫鲁晓夫在苏共二十大揭露斯大林的暴行时,台下有人递条子上去。 
赫鲁晓夫当场宣读了条子的内容:“赫鲁晓夫同志,当时你在干什么?”。 
然后问道:“这是谁写的,请站出来!”。 
连问三次,台下一直没有人站出来。 
于是,赫鲁晓夫说:“现在让我来回答你吧,当时我就坐在你的位置上。” 

       1957年反右,北京大学划“右派” 716 人,其中 8 人先后被处决:


中文系学生林昭            1968处死;


数学力学系教师任大熊 1970处死;


西语系学生顾文选        1970处死; 


历史系学生沈元            1970处死;


化学系学生张锡锟        1976处死;


物理系学生吴思慧        1970处死;


哲学系学生黄宗奇        1957处死;


哲学系学生黄立众        1970处死。


北京大学数学系教师任大熊

                                                              北京大学数学力学系教师任大熊

1957年,北京大学数学系教师任大熊以及陶懋颀、陈奉孝这三个参与翻译赫鲁晓夫秘密报告

的老师和学生统统被打成右派分子。

1970年,一份《大同市公安机关军事管制委员会刑事判决书》(70)军刑字第29号把任大熊

作为所谓现行反革命暴乱集团“中国共产主义联盟”(简称“共联”)的三号主犯判处死刑,

验明正身,签字画押,绑赴刑场,立即执行。

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           Speech to the 20th Congress of the C.P.S.U.

                     Delivered By Nikita Khrushchev on February 25, 1956

   赫鲁晓夫: 关于个人崇拜及其后果    1956年2月25日

Comrades! In the Party Central Committee’s report at the 20th Congress and in a number of speeches by delegates to the Congress, as also formerly during Plenary CC/CPSU [Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] sessions, quite a lot has been said about the cult of the individual and about its harmful consequences.

After Stalin’s death, the Central Committee began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior.

同志们:

        

    在党中央委员会的报告和许多代表在代表大会的发言中,以及以前历次党中央全会上,对于个人崇拜和它所造成的有害后果已谈了很多。斯大林逝世以后,党中央委员会开始执行如下方针:

    

    坚定而不懈地指明:夸大某个人的作用,把他变成具有神仙般非凡品质的超人,是和马克思列宁主义的精神相违背的,是不能容许的。这个人似乎无所不知,洞察一切,能代替所有人的思考,能做一切事情,他的行为没有半点错误。多年来,我们养成了用这样的观点去看待人,具体地说就是这样看待斯大林的。


    我这个报告不想全面评述斯大林的生平事迹。关于斯大林的功绩,还在他活着的时候,就写了大量的书籍、小册子和研究论文,已经进行了足够的研究,斯大林在准备和实现社会主义革命中,在国内战争中,以及在我国建设社会主义的斗争中所起的作用,是尽人皆知的。
    
    现在,我们关心的,是一个对我们党的现在和将来都有重大意义的问题,那就是对斯大林的个人崇拜是怎样逐步形成的,它怎样在一定阶段上变成一系列极其严重地歪曲党的原理,歪曲党的民主和革命法制的根源。
    
    由于并不是所有的人都充分认识到个人崇拜所造成的实际后果以及因破坏党的集体领导原则而带来的巨大危害,同时由于个人独揽大权这一事实,党中央认为绝对有必要向苏联共产党第二十次代表大会报告有关这个问题的材料。
    
    一
    
    首先,请允许我提示一下马克思列宁主义经典作家是怎样严厉斥责个人崇拜的任何表现的。
    
    马克思在给德国政治活动家威廉·布洛斯的信中说:“由于厌恶一切个人迷信,在国际存在的时候,我从来都不想公布那许许多多来自各国的、使我厌烦的歌功颂德的东西,我甚至从来也不予答复。偶尔答复,也只是加以斥责。恩格斯和我最初参加共产主义者秘密团体时的必要条件是:摒弃章程中一切助长迷信权威的东西。原来,拉萨尔的所作所为却恰恰相反。”


   
 Sometime later Engels wrote: “Both Marx and I have always been against any public manifestation with regard to individuals, with the exception of cases when it had an important purpose. We most strongly opposed such manifestations which during our lifetime concerned us personally.”


    不久以后,恩格斯也写道:“马克思和我,我们一直反对公开宣扬个人,只有为了达到某种重大目的才可例外。我们尤其反对那些在我们活着的时候,对我们个人所做的宣扬。”
    
    大家都知道革命的天才—列宁是非常谦虚的。列宁永远强调人民作为历史创造者的作用,强调党作为一个活生生的具有主动精神的整体的领导和组织作用,强调中央委员会的作用。
    

While ascribing great importance to the role of the leaders and organizers of the masses, Lenin at the same time mercilessly stigmatized every manifestation of the cult of the individual, inexorably combated [any] foreign-to-Marxism views about a “hero” and a “crowd,” and countered all efforts to oppose a “hero” to the masses and to the people.


    马克思主义并不否定工人阶级领导者在领导革命解放运动中的作用。列宁在指出群众领袖和组织者的重大作用的同时,无情地揭露了个人崇拜的各种表现,同敌视马克思主义的“群氓”观点进行了不可调和的斗争,并坚决反对把“英雄”塞给人民群众。
    
    列宁教导说,党的力量在于同群众保持密切的联系,在于人民—工人、农民和知识分子跟随党一起前进。列宁说过:“只有相信人民,扎根于生动的群众创造性源泉的人,才能胜利,才能掌握住政权。”
    
    列宁自豪地说,布尔什维克党,共产党是人民的领袖和导师,他号召一切重大问题由觉悟的工人来决定,由自己的党来决定。他说:“我们相信党,我们把党看成是我们时代的智慧、荣誉和良心。”
    
    列宁坚决反对缩小和削弱党对于苏维埃国家的领导作用的一切企图。他制定了党的领导的布尔什维克原则和党的生活准则。他强调指出集体领导是党的领导的指导原则。
    
    还在革命前的年代里,列宁就称党中央委员会是领导者的集体,是党的原则的保护者和说明者。他说:“在两届代表大会期间,党的各项原则由中央委员会维护并由它解释。”在强调党中央委员会的作用和它的权威时,列宁指出:“我们的中央已经形成为一个严格集中而有高度威信的集团。”
    
    在列宁活着的时候,党中央委员会真正地体现了对于党和国家的集体领导。列宁作为战斗的马克思主义革命家,在原则问题上毫不妥协,但永远没有强迫同自己一起工作的同志接受自己的观点,他耐心地解释自己的意见,使别人信服。列宁历来都严格地监督执行党的生活准则、遵守党章,及时召开党代表大会和中央全会。
    
    列宁对于工人阶级和劳动农民的胜利,对于我党的胜利和科学共产主义思想的实现所作的一切是伟大的。除此以外,他的洞察力还表现在,他及时地从斯大林的身上看出一些不良品质,这些不良品质在后来造成了严重后果。
    
    列宁由于关怀党和苏维埃国家的未来命运,他为斯大林做了完全正确的鉴定,他提出过应该研究改变斯大林的总书记职务问题,因为斯大林过于粗暴,对同志关心不够,任性和滥用职权。
    
    列宁在写给党代表大会的信里说过:“斯大林同志当了总书记,掌握了无限的权力,他能不能永远十分谨慎地使用这一权力,我没有把握。”这份在我党历史上称之为列宁“遗嘱”的极其重要的政治文献,已经发给了二十次代表大会的代表们。
    
    你们已经读过这个文件,而且毫无疑问你们会再读它几遍。请你们深入地考虑一下,列宁所说的下列这些真诚的话,这些话体现了他对党、人民、国家以及党的未来政治方针的关怀。


Vladimir Ilyich said:

“Stalin is excessively rude, and this defect, which can be freely tolerated in our midst and in contacts among us Communists, becomes a defect which cannot be tolerated in one holding the position of General Secretary. Because of this, I propose that the comrades consider the method by which Stalin would be removed from this position and by which another man would be selected for it, a man who, above all, would differ from Stalin in only one quality, namely, greater tolerance, greater loyalty, greater kindness and more considerate attitude toward the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc.”


    
    弗拉基米尔·伊里奇说:“斯大林粗暴,这个缺点在我们中间,在我们共产党人的来往中是完全可以容忍的,但是在总书记的职位上便是不可容忍的了。因此,我建议同志们想个办法把斯大林从这位置上调开,另外指定一个人担任总书记,这个人在各方面同斯大林一样,只是有一点强过他,就是更耐心、更忠顺、更和蔼,更关心同志,少任性等等”。
    
    列宁的这个文件在第十三次党代表大会的代表团中宣读过,代表团并且讨论了撤销斯大林总书记职务的问题。各代表团赞成斯大林留任,希望他认真考虑列宁的批评,从而改正这些深为列宁所担心的缺点。
    
    同志们!有必要向党代表大会报告两个新的文件,这两个文件证实了列宁在他的“遗嘱”中给斯大林所下的评语。
    
    这两个文件就是:娜捷施达·康斯坦丁诺夫娜·克鲁普斯卡娅给当时在政治局担任书记的加米涅夫的信和列宁写给斯大林的信。
    
    我现在宣读一下这些文件。
    
    克鲁普斯卡娅的信:
    
    “列夫·波里索维奇(即加米涅夫)。
    “关于我经过医生允许在弗拉基米尔·伊里奇的口授下写的一封短信问题,昨天斯大林对我的态度是非常粗暴的。我在党内不是一天了。在这30年里,我一次也没有听到那怕是一个同志的一句粗暴的话。党和伊里奇的利益对我比斯大林更为宝贵。可是现在我需要的是最大的克制。和伊里奇能谈什么和不能谈什么,我比任何医生都了解,因为我知道什么问题会使他不安,不管怎样比斯大林要了解。现在我请求你和格里哥里(即季诺维也夫),因为你们是弗·伊的最亲近的朋友,请你们保护我,使我的个人生活免遭粗暴的干涉和不应有的谩骂和威胁。斯大林用以威胁我的监察委员会的一致协议,我是不怀疑的,但我没有力量也没有时间去搞那个愚蠢的争吵。我也是个活人,我的神经已紧张到了顶点。”
    
    这封信是克鲁普斯卡娅在1922年12月23日写的。过了两个半月以后,即1923年3月,列宁给斯大林写了这样一封信:


“TO COMRADE STALIN (COPIES FOR: KAMENEV AND ZINOVIEV):

“Dear comrade Stalin!

“You permitted yourself a rude summons of my wife to the telephone and a rude reprimand of her. Despite the fact that she told you that she agreed to forget what was said, nevertheless Zinoviev and Kamenev heard about it from her. I have no intention to forget so easily that which is being done against me. I need not stress here that I consider as directed against me that which is being done against my wife. I ask you, therefore, that you weigh carefully whether you are agreeable to retracting your words and apologizing, or whether you prefer the severance of relations between us.

“SINCERELY: LENIN, MARCH 5, 1923

   
    “斯大林同志,
    “副本抄加米涅夫和季诺维也夫。
    “尊敬的斯大林同志:你曾粗鲁地给我的妻子打电话骂了她。虽然她已向您表示愿意忘记说过的话,但是这件事季诺维也夫和加米涅夫从她那里知道了。我并不愿意轻易忘记反对我的事情,在这里不必说,我认为反对我妻子的事就是反对我的。因此,请您酌情考虑,你是否同意收回你说过的话并表示道歉?还是愿意断绝我们之间的关系?
    致敬。
    列宁,1923年3月5日
    
    同志们!我不想评述这些文件,这些文件本身已经令人信服地说明了问题。如果还在列宁活着的时候,斯大林能够采取这种态度,能够这样地对待克鲁普斯卡妮—列宁的忠实朋友和从我党诞生起就为党的事业而积极奋斗的战士,那么可以想象,斯大林是怎样对待其他工作人员的。斯大林的这些不良品质愈来愈发展,在晚年已达到令人不能容忍的地步。

Image result for nikita khrushchev and stalin

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    后来的事实证明,列宁的担心不是没有根据的。在列宁逝世后的初期,斯大林还考虑他的指示,而后来则逐渐轻视列宁的严重警告。如果我们分析一下斯大林领导党和国家的实际活动,考虑一下他所犯的全部过失,我们必须相信列宁的担心是正确的。斯大林的一些不良品质在列宁活着的时候还只是处于萌芽状态,但在以后年代里已经发展到严重地滥用职权的地步,因而给我们党造成莫大的损失。
    
    我们必须严正地研究和正确地分析这个问题,以便消除任何可能性,不再重复斯大林在世时所犯下的一切过失。斯大林根本不允许实现集体领导和集体工作,他不仅对反对他的人要施加暴力,而且由于他的任性和专横,连被他看成与他的思想相违背的人,也要施以暴力。
    
    斯大林不是通过说服、解释和耐心地同别人合作,而是把他的思想强加于人,要别人无条件接受他的意见。凡是反对他这种做法的人,或者力图证明自己的观点,证明自己正确的人,都必然会被开除出领导机关,接着就会受到精神上的折磨和肉体上的消灭。
    
    在第十七次党代会以后的这个时期内,这一点表现得更加明显。许许多多忠实于共产主义事业的、党的卓越活动家和党的一般工作人员都成了斯大林专横的牺牲品。
    
    应该说,党在反对托格茨基分子,反对右派分子和资产阶级民族主义者方面进行了重大的斗争,从思想上粉碎了列宁主义的一切敌人。这次思想斗争进行得很成功,在斗争中党更加巩固了,受到了更大的锻炼。斯大林在这方面也起了积极的作用。
    
    党领导了一场巨大的政治思想斗争,反对自己队伍中发表反列宁主义纲领的人们,他们是敌视党和社会主义事业的政治路线的代表人物。这是一场顽强而艰苦的斗争,然而是一场必要的斗争,因为托洛茨基—季诺维也夫集团和布哈林分子的政治路线,实质上是要复辟资本主义和向世界资产阶级投降。
    
    我们可以想象,如果1928-1929年右倾政治路线在党内取得胜利,或者把“棉布服装工业化”作为方向,或者转向富农,其结果将会怎样?我们那时就不会有强大的重工业,不会有集体农庄,我们在资本主义包围的面前就会赤手空拳,处于软弱无力的地位。
    
    因此,党才从思想上进行了不可调和的斗争,向全体党员和非党群众说明托洛茨基反对派和右倾机会主义分子反对列宁主义主张的害处和危险性。
    
    党在说明党的路线方面所做的巨大工作也收到了成效。无论托洛茨基分子和右倾机会主义分子在政治上都被孤立起来,党内绝大多数都拥护列宁的路线,因此,党才能够鼓舞和组织劳动群众去实现党的列宁路线。去建成社会主义。
    
    下述这种情况是值得重视的。甚至在进行炽烈的残酷的思想斗争的时候,对于托洛茨基分子、季诺维也夫分子和布哈林分子等都没有采取极端的镇压办法。当时的斗争是在思想方面进行的。
    
    但是过了几年以后,当社会主义已经基本上在我国建成,剥削阶级基本上被消灭,苏维埃社会的社会结构发生了根本的变化,敌对的政党、政治派别和集团的社会基础已大大缩小,党的思想敌人在政治上早已粉碎的情况下,反而对他们开始采取镇压的措施。
    
    正是在1936—1938年这个时期,开始在国家机关当中大肆镇压,首先是镇压那些早已被党从政治上粉碎了的列宁主义的敌人——托洛茨基分子、季诺维也夫分子和布哈林分子,然后也镇压了许多正直的共产党人,镇压了党的干部,这些人亲身经历了国内战争和工业化与集体化最艰苦的年代,他们为了保卫党的列宁路线同托洛茨基分子和右派分子进行了积极的斗争。
    
    斯大林首创“人民敌人”这个概念。这一名词可以使犯了思想错误或只卷入争论的人毋须证明自己所犯错误的性质,它可以自动给这些人加上这个罪名,可以破坏革命法制的一切准则,对他们实施最残酷的迫害,以对付在某一点上不同意斯大林的人,对付那些只是被怀疑有敌意的人,对付那些受到诬陷的人。
    
    “人民敌人”这个概念,实质上已经排除了任何思想斗争和就某些问题那怕是实际问题表达自己意见的可能性。定罪的主要依据,实质上唯一的证据就是被告本人的“自供”,然而这种“自供”后来经查明,乃是对被告施行肉刑逼出来的,这种做法与现代法学的一切标准是完全违背的。
    
    于是就导致明目张胆地破坏革命法制,使许许多多过去维护党的路线的无辜的人成了牺牲品。应该说,即使那些曾经反对党的路线的人们,也没有那么多重大理由一定要把他们从肉体上消灭掉,并为了从肉体上消灭这些人,便特别采用“人民敌人”这个概念。
    
    很多被控为党和人民的敌人而在后来被枪决的人,在列宁活着的时候都是同列宁一起工作的。其中的一些人在列宁在世的时候就犯过错误,但尽管如此。列宁还是给他们工作做,纠正他们的错误,想尽办法使他们留在党内,引导他们跟随着自己前进。
    
    二
    
    在此,应该向党代会的代表介绍一下以前没有发表过的,列宁关于1920年10月写给中央政治局的一个短笺。列宁在规定监察委员会的任务时写到,必须把这个委员会变成真正的“党和无产阶级良心的机关”。
    
    列宁指出:“监察委员会的一项特别任务是要和反对派的代表建立一种深切的个人关系,有时甚至采取治病的方式去对待他们;他们因为在苏维埃或党的工作中遭受挫折而产生了心理危机。应尽力安慰他们,同志式地给他们讲明情况,给他们安排(不是用命令方式)适合他们心理特点的工作。关于这方面的意见和规定由中央委员会组织局制定。”
    
    大家都很清楚,列宁对于马克思主义的思想敌人和那些离开党的正确路线的人是不调和的。但同时从读过的文件中也可以看出,列宁在领导国家的整个活动中,都要求从党的立场出发,慎重地对待那些表现过动摇、离开过党的路线,但是还能够回到党的路线上来的同志。他建议耐心地教育这些人,不要对他们采取极端措施。
    
    列宁对待人,对待干部的英明也就在于此。
    
    斯大林对待人则完全另外一个样,列宁的特点是耐心地做人的工作,循循善诱地教导他们,不是用强迫的方法,而是通过整个集体从思想上影响他们,引导他们跟随他前进。
    
    这一切与斯大林完全不同。斯大林抛弃了思想斗争的方法,代之以行政暴力,大规模的镇压和恐怖手段。他愈来愈广泛地、愈来愈坚决地利用惩罚机关,往往破坏现存的一切道德标准和苏维埃法律。
    

Arbitrary behavior by one person encouraged and permitted arbitrariness in others. Mass arrests and deportations of many thousands of people, execution without trial and without normal investigation created conditions of insecurity, fear and even desperation.


    一个人的专横也就怂恿了另外一些人的专横,把成千的人大批逮捕和流放,不经

法庭审讯和正规调查就处以死刑等等。
    
    它产生了人和人的不信任,引起了不安、恐怖和绝望状态。这当然不会促进党的队伍的团结和劳动人民各阶层的团结,相反,是消灭了那些忠诚的但不为斯大林喜欢的干部,或者是把他们从党内排挤出去。
    
    我们党为实现列宁建设社会主义的计划进行了斗争。
    
    这是一场思想斗争,如果在这场斗争中能够遵循列宁主义的原则,善于把党的原则性同对人的深切关怀结合起来,不排斥和毁掉一些人,而是把他们吸引到自己方面来,那么,我们肯定不会有这类粗暴破坏革命法则的事,成千上万的人就不会成为恐怖手段的牺牲品。只有对真正犯了反对苏维埃制度的罪行的人,才可以采取极端的措施。
    
    现在,我们举出历史上的几件事实。
    
    在十月革命以前的日子里,两名布尔什维克党中央委员—加米涅夫和季诺维也夫反对列宁的武装起义计划。他们甚至在10月18日孟什维克报《新生活》上发表声明,公布布尔什维克准备武统起义的消息,他们还说这是冒险行动。
    
    加米涅夫和季诺维也夫就是这样向敌人泄露了中央委员会发动武装起义的决定,并且说起义已组织就绪,不久即将进行。
    
    这种行动是背叛党和革命事业的。因此,列宁写道:“加米涅夫和季诺维也夫把自己党中央关于武装起义的诀议出卖给罗将科和克伦斯基了。”于是,他向中央提出了开除加米涅夫和季诺维也夫出党的问题。
    
    但是,在伟大十月社会主义革命成功之后,大家知道,季诺维也夫和加米涅夫受命担任领导职务。列宁把他们放在完成党的极其重要任务的岗位上,他们积极参与了党和苏维埃的机关的领导工作。
    
    大家知道,季诺维也夫和加米涅夫还在列宁活着的时候就犯了不少其他的大错误。列宁在自己的“遗嘱”中警告说,“当然,季诺维也夫和加米涅夫的十月事件不是偶然的。”但是,列宁并没有提出逮捕,尤其没有提出枪决他们的问题。
    
    再拿托洛茨基分子做例子吧!
    
    现在,经过很长一段历史时间以后,我们可以平心静气地来谈反对托派的斗争,可以非常客观地来分析这个案件。托洛茨基周围的人决不是出身资产阶级的分子,其中一部分人是党的知识分子,而某一部分则是工人出身的。
    
    我们可以举出很多人,他们最初曾经靠近托洛茨基分子,但他们也积极地参加了革命前的工人运动,参加了十月社会主义革命和巩固这一伟大成果的斗争。其中很多人与托洛茨基脱离了关系,而转到列宁的立场上。难道有必要从肉体上把这些人消灭掉吗?
    
    我们深信,如果当时列宁还在世的话,是不会对其中的很多人采取这种极端措施的。
    
    这只是在历史上的几件事实。难道能够说,在必要的情况下,列宁就没有决定过对革命的敌人采取严厉的手段?不,任何人都不能这样说。
    
    列宁要求严厉镇压反革命和工人阶级的敌人,必要的时候无情地使用这种手段。请大家回忆一下,1918年列宁在反对社会革命党所组织的反苏维埃的暴动和反革命富农的斗争时,曾毫不动摇地对这些敌人采取了最坚决的措施。
    
    但是,列宁采取这种办法是用来反对真正的阶级敌人的,而不是用来反对那些犯了错误,迷失了方向,但是仍能用思想影响的办法引导前进,甚至还能继续担任领导工作的人们。
    
    在非常必要的情况下,譬如,剥削阶级疯狂地反对革命,斗争你死我活,而且必须具有最尖锐的形式,直到采取国内战争的形式时,列宁是采取了严厉的措施的。
    
    而斯大林采取最极端的办法,是在革命已经取得了胜利,苏维埃国家业已巩固,剥削阶级已被消灭,社会主义关系在国民经济的各个部门已经确立,而且我们党在政治上业已巩固,无论从数量上和思想上来看已经受到了锻炼的时候。
    
    事情很明显,斯大林在很多情况下都表现了不耐心、粗暴和滥用职权。他不是去证明自己在政治上的正确性,不是动员群众,而是往往采用镇压和肉体消灭的手段,不仅镇压和消灭真正的敌人,而且镇压和消灭对党和苏维埃政权没有犯罪的人们。
    
    在这方面毫无英明可言,有的只是炫耀暴力,而列宁对此曾很担心。
    
    党中央委员会在最近,特别是在贝利亚匪帮被揭露以后,审查了这个匪帮所制造的许多案件。审查之中发现了与斯大林的错误行为相联系的粗暴专横的极丑恶的情况。
    
    事实证明,斯大林利用无限的权力,滥用职权,以中央的名义行事,但不征求中央委员们,甚至中央政治局委员们的意见。斯大林做了许多专横的事,他经常个人决定党和政府极其重要的事务,连政治局委员也不通知。
    
    当我们研究个人崇拜问题时,我们首先必须弄清,个人崇拜对我党的利益有何危害。
    
    弗·伊·列宁经常强调党在领导工农社会主义国家中的作用和意义,将它视作在我国顺利建设社会主义的主要条件。列宁在指出布尔什维克党作为苏维埃国家统治的政党的巨大责任时,号召严格遵守党的生活的一切准则,实现对党和国家集体领导的原则。
    
    领导的集体制是由建立在民主集中制基础上的我党根本性质所决定的。
    
    “这就是说,”—列宁讲道—“党的一切事务是直接地或经过代表进行的,所有的党员权利平等。没有例外,同时所有负责的人员,所有领导人员及一切党的机构由选举产生,要报告工作,他们可以更换。”
    
    众所周知,列宁本人即表现了最严格遵守这些原则的范例。列宁对每个重要问题,从来不是由个人作决定,都是和大多数中央委员或中央政治局委员商议和取得同意之后决定的。
    
    在党和国家最困难的时期,列宁认为必须正常地召开党代表大会、代表会议、中央全会,这些会议讨论一切最重要的问题,通过由领导者集体研究制定的决议。
    
    比如,在1918年,国家遭受到帝国主义干涉者进犯的威胁。在这样的情况下,召开了党的第七次代表大会,讨论极其重要和迫切的问题—关于和平的问题。
    
    1919年,国内战争正激烈进行,这时,召开了党的第八次代表大会,会上通过了新的党纲,解决了重要的问题,如对农民群众的态度,建立红军,党在工人苏维埃中的领导作用,改善党的社会成份问题等。
    
    1920年召开了党第九次代表大会,确定了党在经济建设领域开展工作的指导原则。
    
    1921年第十次党代会通过了列宁的新经济政策和“关于党的统一”的历史性的决议。
    
    列宁在世时,党代表大会都按时召开,在党和国家发展中的每一个转折关头,列宁认为党必须对内外政策以及有关党和国家发展的问题进行深入的讨论。
    
    很值得指出的是列宁将其最后所写的文章、信件和札记都寄给了党的最高机关—党代表大会。在代表大会休会期间,党中央委员会就是严格遵守党的原则,实现党的政策的最富有威望的领导集体。列宁在世的情况就是如此。
    
    在列宁逝世后,我们党的神圣的列宁主义原则是否被遵守了呢?如果说,在列宁逝世后的最初几年内,党代表大会和中央全会多少还正常召开的话,那么,后来当斯大林开始愈加滥用职权的时候,这些原则就被粗暴地破坏了。这在斯大林生前最后十五年表现得尤为明显。
    
    在第十八次和第十九次党代表大会之间经过了十三年,在这一时期内我们党和国家经历了不少重大事件。这些事件坚决要求党对在卫国战争时的国防问题以及战后年代和平建设问题作出决议。此外,甚至在战争结束后七年多也未召开代表大会。难道可以认为这是正常的吗?
    
    中央全会几乎也未召开过。只要说一点就够了,即在伟大的卫国战争年代中,事实上未举行过一次中央全会。的确,1941年10月曾想召开中央全会。中央委员们特地从全国各地被召致莫斯科。他们等全会开会等了两天,但没有等到,斯大林甚至不愿和中央委员会的委员们见面谈话。
    
    这一事实说明,在战争头几个月内斯大林灰心丧气到了何种地步,它也说明,斯大林对待中央委员们又是怎样的傲慢和轻侮。
    
    这一事实表明,斯大林无视党的生活准则,践踏党的集体领导原则。斯大林对党、对党中央委员会的专横态度在1934年第十七次党代表大会后充分暴露出来了。
    
    中央委员会在掌握了大量可以证明对党的干部施以粗暴专横的事实后,组织了一个中央主席团领导下的委员会,责成它详细地调查,对联共十七次代表大会选出的党中央委员会大多数的正式和候补委员所进行的大规模的迫害是如何造成的。
    
    委员会调阅了人民内务委员会档案中大量材料及其他材料,是阅了许多伪造的、虚假的控诉,不能容忍的破坏社会主义法制的事实,它曾使许多无辜的人牺牲了。
    
    它查明,1937—1938年被控为“敌人”的许多党的、苏维埃的、经济的工作人员其实根本不是敌人、特务和破坏者,而是一贯正直的共产党人,他们只是遭尽诬陷,有时不能忍受兽性的折磨而自己给自己加上了(在伪造证件的审判员的授意下)各种各样严重而不可思议的罪名。
    
    委员会向中央委员会主席团提供了大量关于迫害十七大代表和十七大选出的中央委员材料。中央委员会主席团审查了这个材料。
    
    经查明,在第十七次党代表大会选出的139名正式和候补委员被逮捕和遭枪决(主要是在1937-1938年)的有98人,即70%。(全场群情激动)。
    
    十七次党代表大会代表成份如何呢?大家知遇,十七次党代表大会有表决权的代表84%是在地下革命工作时期和国内战争时期,即在1920年前参加党的。从社会出身来说,代表大会的代表基本上是工人(占有表决权的代表60%)。
    
    所以,由这样成份的党代表大会所选出的党中央委员会的多数居然是党的敌人,是完全不能想象的事。仅仅由于正直的共产党人被诬陷,加上了伪造的控告,以至极端破坏了革命的法制,十七次党代表大会的委员和候补委员竟有70%被宣布为党和人民的敌人。
    

The same fate met not only Central Committee members but also the majority of the delegates to the 17th Party Congress. Of 1,966 delegates with either voting or advisory rights, 1,108 persons were arrested on charges of anti-revolutionary crimes, i.e., decidedly more than a majority. This very fact shows how absurd, wild and contrary to common sense were the charges of counterrevolutionary crimes made out, as we now see, against a majority of participants at the 17th Party Congress.

(Indignation in the hall.)


    遭到这样命运的不仅是中央委员会委员,十七次党代表大会的大多数代表也遭到同样的命运。代表大会有表决权和发言权的1966名代表中,因被控犯有反革命罪行而被捕的占一半以上——1108人。
    
    仅这一事实说明,如现在已查明的,十七次党代表大会的大多数参加者被控为反革命罪行的捏造是多么荒谬、野蛮和违反了正常的思想。(全场群情激动)。
    
    应该指出,十七次党代表大会是作为胜利者的代表大会而载入史册的。代表大会代表都是我们社会主义国家建设的积极参加者,他们之中许多人在革命以前的年代,在地下以及在国内战争的前线上,为党的事业进行了艰苦的斗争,他们英勇地同敌人搏斗,他们的生命不止一次地遭到危险,但从未动摇过,怎么能够相信,在政治上粉碎季诺维也夫、托洛茨基和右派分子之后,以及在社会主义建设胜利之后的时期内,这样的人竟变成了“两面派”并参加了社会主义敌人的阵营?
    
    这是斯大林滥用职权所造成的。斯大林开始对党的干部实行大规模的恐怖。为什么在党的十七次代表大会后对积极分子的大规模的恐怖会加剧了呢?因为斯大林在这个时期已经站在党和人民之上他完全不顾及党中央委员会和党了。
    
    如果在十七次党代表大会前他还考虑集体的意见,而在政治上完全粉碎托洛茨基、季诺维也夫、布哈林分子后,当这一斗争和社会主义胜利的结果达到了党的团结、人民的团结的时候,斯大林更加不顾及中央委员会委员乃至政治局委员了。
    
    斯大林认为他现在可以决定一切事务,他所需要的只是统计员,他使得别人处于只应听从和歌颂他的地位。
    
    三
    
    在基洛夫同志被惨害后,开始了大规模的恐怖及对社会主义法制的粗暴违反。1934年12月1日傍晚,根据斯大林的倡议(没有政治局的决议—这仅在两天之后才提出)由中央执行委员会主席团书记叶奴启泽签署了下列决定:
    
    “1 、侦讯机关—加速审理策划或进行恐怖行为的案件。
    
    “2 、司法机关—不要因该类罪犯提出赦免的申请而推迟执行死刑的判决,因为苏联执行委员会主席团认为不可能受理这类申请。
    
    “3 、内务人民委员会的机关—在法庭作出死刑判决后对上述类别的罪犯立即执行。” 这一决议被作为大规模破坏社会主义法制的根据。在许多伪造的审讯案件中,被告者被加上“策划”恐怖行为的罪名,这就剥夺了重审案情的可能,即便他们在法庭上陈述自己的“供词”出于被迫,并坚决否认对他们的控告,情况也是这样。
    
    应该说与暗害基洛夫有关的情况,至今还有许多令人费解、莫名奇妙的地方,需要仔细地加以调查。有根据可以这样想,杀害基洛夫的凶手—尼古拉也夫受到了保卫基洛夫的人们之中的某个人的帮助。
    
    在基洛夫被害的一个半月前,尼古拉也夫因行迹可疑而被捕,但又被释放,甚至未加搜查,更可疑的是,当派在基洛夫处的保卫人员于1934年12月2日被送去受审时,在汽车“失事”时死去了,但与他同车的人却没有受伤。
    
    基洛夫被害后,列宁格勒内务人民委员会的领导人员只受到非常轻微的处分,但在1937年却又被枪决。
    
    可以想象,所以把他们枪决是为了掩盖谋杀基洛夫的组织者的痕迹(会场骚动)在斯大林、日丹诺夫1936年9月25日从索契打给卡冈诺维奇、莫洛托夫及其他政治局委员的电报以后,1936年底起大规模的镇压便大大加强了。
    
    该电报中称:
    
    “我们认为,十分必要紧急地任命叶若夫同志为内务人民委员。亚哥达在揭发托洛茨基—季诺维也夫同盟案件的工作中清楚地表现出不能胜任。国家政治保卫总局破获此案件延误了4年。内务人民委员部的全体党的干部以及内务部多数州的代表都持这种意见。
    
    “严格说来,我们应当了解斯大林从未和党的干部见过面,因此他们的意见他是无从知道的。”
    
    在实行大规模镇压时,斯大林的这一论断即“内务人民委员会延误了4年”,以及必须“弥补”先前工作中的疏忽,直接促进了内务人民委员会的工作人员施行大规模逮捕和枪杀。不得不指出,1937年联共(布)中央2月至8月的全会被迫接受了这一论断。全会根据叶若夫关于“破坏者、暗杀者和日本-德国-托洛茨基特务活动的教训”报告,通过了的决议称:
    
    “联共(布)中央全会认为,在调查反苏维埃的托洛茨基总部及其同谋者的案件过程中所查明的事实表明,在揭发人民最险恶的敌人中,内务人民委员会至少耽误了4年。”
    
    大规模镇压当时是在反托洛茨基的旗帜下进行的。实际上当时托洛茨基分子对我们党和苏维埃国家有否这性的危险?
    
    应该指出,在1927年,即第十五次党代表大会前,投票赞成托洛茨基-季诺维也夫反对派的只有4000人,而赞成党的路线的有724000人。在第十五次党代表大会至中央2-3月全会的十年内,托洛茨基主义已被完全粉碎,许多原来的托洛茨基分子放弃了自己原有的观点并在社会主义建设的各个岗位上工作着。
    
    显然,在社会主义胜利的条件下,在国内实行大规模恐怖是没有根据的。
    
    斯大林在1937年中央2-3月全会上《论党的工作的缺点和消灭托洛茨基两面派及其它两面派的办法》的报告中,企图给大规模恐怖政策予以理论根据,所用的借口是,随着我们的社会主义的进展,阶级斗争应当愈来愈尖锐。
    
    斯大林并且说,历史是这样教导我们的,列宁是这样教导我们的。
    
    事实上,列宁说,之所以必需采用革命暴力是由于剥削阶级的反抗,这也指剥削阶级还存在并且强大的时期。当国内政治情况好转,在1930年1月红军夺取了罗斯托夫,并取得了对邓尼金的胜利之后,列宁即指示捷尔任斯基取消大规模恐怖手段和死刑。
    
    列宁在1920年2月2日中央执行委员会上的报告中是这样来证明苏维埃政权这一重要政治措施的:
    
    “恐怖手段是协约国的恐怖主义强加在我们身上的,是在世界列强毫无忌惮地以其兵团侵犯我们的时候,如果对这些军官和白党的企图不予以无情的回击,我们连两天也支持不了,而这就是恐怖手段,但这是协约国的恐怖手段加给我们的。但当我们还在战争结束以前获得了决定性胜利的时候,在罗斯托夫刚一占领后,我们就拒绝实行死刑。这表明,我们是照着我们所承诺的来对待自己的纲领的。我们说,采用暴力是由镇压剥削者、镇压地主和资本家的任务而引起的。
    
    当这一切解决之后,我们即放弃任何的非常方法。我们在事实上证明了这一点。”
    
    斯大林背离了列宁这些直接明了的纲领性指示。在我国国内一切剥削阶级被消灭之后,采用非常办法实行大规模恐怖已失去任何重要依据的时候,斯大林却要党和内务人民委员会去实行大规模恐怖。
    
    这种恐怖手段事实上不只用来反对被击败的剥削阶级残余,而是反对党和苏维埃国家的正直干部。他们被加上了虚假、诬陷、荒唐的“两面派”、“特务分子”、“破坏分子”等帽子,说他们策划某种臆想的“阴谋”活动。
    
    在党中央2-3月全会(1937年)上,许多中央委员的发言,实际上表示了怀疑在同“两面派”斗争掩盖下进行大规模镇压的正确性。
    
    这些怀疑在波斯蒂舍夫同志的发育中表现得最明显。他说:
    
    “我是这样考虑的,经过了激烈斗争的年代,腐化了的党员已经身败名裂或投向了敌人,健康的党员为党的事业进行了斗争。这是工业化和集体化的年代。我怎么也未想到,在这激烈斗争年代之后,卡尔波夫和类似他的人会投奔敌人的阵营。但根据所述情况,似乎卡尔波夫从1934年就被托洛茨基分子招募了。我个人认为,在1931年一个正直的共产党员为了党和社会主义事业曾同敌人作过长期的艰难的斗争,现在竟然加入了敌对阵营,这是不可思议的。我不相信这点······我不能设想,和党一起渡过了艰难年代的人怎么会在1934年投向托洛茨基分子,这真是奇事······ “(全场骚动)
    
    斯大林关于愈接近社会主义,敌人会愈多的论断以及中央2-3月全会根据叶若夫报告所通过的决议,就被人加以利用,这就是钻进国家保安机关的破坏者,以及无耻的野心家,他们开始以保卫党的名义对党和苏维埃国家干部、普通的苏联公民实行大规模恐怖。
    
    只指出一点就足以说明,被诬告为反革命罪行而被捕的人数在1937年较1936年增加了九倍多。
    
    大家知道,粗暴专横也涉及到党的领导人员。十七次代表大会通过的党章是根据第十二次党代会阐述的各项列宁主义原则而制订的。这个党章规定,凡需对中央委员、中央候补委员、党的监察委员会委员采取开除出党的极端措施,“必须召开中央全会,并邀请所有候补委员、监察委员会全体委员列席“,只有在这种党员负责人会议上有三分之二的票数认为必需这样做,才能将中央委员或候补委员开除出党。
    
    由第十七次代表大会选出并在1937-1938年受逮捕的大多数中央委员和候补委员,都被开除了党籍,这是非法的,它粗暴地违犯了党章,因为关于开除他们的问题从未在中央全会讨论过。
    
    在调查了某些所谓“特务“和”破坏者“案件后,现已查明,这些案件全系伪造。许多被捕者的供词以及从事敌对活动的指控都是用惨无人道的折磨方法取得的。
    
    正如当时政治局委员们告知我们的,斯大林当时并未把一些被诬告的政治家的许多声明散发给大家看,这些政治家否认了自己的军事审判庭上的供词,要求对他们的案件进行客观的调查。
    
    这样的声明很多,斯大林毫无疑问是知道这些声明的。
    
    中央委员们认为有必要向代表大会报告许许多多这类对十七次党代表大会选出的中央委员所伪造的案件。无耻挑拨,恶意伪造、罪恶破坏革命法制的例证就是前中央政治局候补委员、党和苏维埃国家著名活动家,1905年的党员埃赫同志的案件。(全场激动)
    
    埃赫同志在1938年3月29日根据捏造的材料而遭逮捕,未经苏联最高检察官的批准,只是在逮捕后15个月才交检察官受理。对埃赫案件的调查是在粗暴歪曲苏维埃法制。独断专行和伪造的情况下进行的。
    
    埃赫是在严刑逼供之下,在事先拟好的审讯记录上签字、审讯记录诬告埃赫及许多著名的党和苏维埃干部有反苏维埃的活动。
    
    1939年10月1日埃赫交给斯大林一份声明,坚决否认自己有罪过,要求调查他的案件。他在声明中写道:

Eikhe wrote in his declaration:

“... On October 25 of this year I was informed that the investigation in my case has been concluded and I was given access to the materials of this investigation. Had I been guilty of only one hundredth of the crimes with which I am charged, I would not have dared to send you this pre-execution declaration. However I have not been guilty of even one of the things with which I am charged and my heart is clean of even the shadow of baseness. I have never in my life told you a word of falsehood, and now, finding both feet in the grave, I am still not lying. My whole case is a typical example of provocation, slander and violation of the elementary basis of revolutionary legality....

“... The confessions which were made part of my file are not only absurd but contain slander toward the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and toward the Council of People’s Commissars. [This is] because correct resolutions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and of the Council of People’s Commissars which were not made on my initiative and [were promulgated] without my participation are presented as hostile acts of counterrevolutionary organizations made at my suggestion.

“I am now alluding to the most disgraceful part of my life and to my really grave guilt against the Party and against you. This is my confession of counterrevolutionary activity.... The case is as follows: Not being able to suffer the tortures to which I was submitted by [Z.] Ushakov and Nikolayev – especially by the former, who utilized the knowledge that my broken ribs have not properly mended and have caused me great pain – I have been forced to accuse myself and others.

“The majority of my confession has been suggested or dictated by Ushakov. The rest is my reconstruction of NKVD materials from Western Siberia for which I assumed all responsibility. If some part of the story which Ushakov fabricated and which I signed did not properly hang together, I was forced to sign another variation. The same thing was done to [Moisey] Rukhimovich, who was at first designated as a member of the reserve net and whose name later was removed without telling me anything about it. The same also was done with the leader of the reserve net, supposedly created by Bukharin in 1935. At first I wrote my [own] name in, and then I was instructed to insert [Valery] Mezhlauk’s. There were other similar incidents.

“... I am asking and begging you that you again examine my case, and this not for the purpose of sparing me but in order to unmask the vile provocation which, like a snake, wound itself around many persons in a great degree due to my meanness and criminal slander. I have never betrayed you or the Party. I know that I perish because of vile and mean work of enemies of the Party and of the people, who have fabricated the provocation against me.”


        最大的痛苦莫过于蹲在我一直为之奋斗的政府的监狱中。
    
    埃赫在1939年10月27日给斯大林的第二份声明也保存着,声明依据事实坚决驳斥对他的诬告,他指出这些诽谤性的指控,一方面是真正的托洛茨基分子干的,因为他作为西部西伯利亚边区党委第一书记曾批准过逮捕他们的命令,他们阴谋报复他,另一方面这也是检查官伪造材料的结果。埃赫在声明中写道:
    
    “今年10月25日向我宣布了我的案件调查工作已经结束,并允许我看有关的调查材料。如果这些材料中所说的罪行,那怕有百分之一是我犯的罪,那么我就不敢向您提出这份临终的申诉,但被指诉是我犯的罪行里,我一件也没有做过。我的心灵里卑鄙的影子从未有过。我一生中从来没有对您说过半句假话,现在当我的两条腿已站在坟墓里时,我还是向您说实话。我的整个案子是阴谋、中伤和违犯革命法则的最起码原则的典型······在调查我的案子时,揭露我的那些交代不仅荒谬,而且在某些方面是对联共(布)中央及人民委员会议的诬蔑,因为在这些交代里联共(布)中央和人民委员会议的一些正确决议被说成是根据我的建议通过的反革命组织的暗害活动,而这些决议不是采纳我的意见,甚至是在我没有参与的情况下通过的······
    
    “现在我来谈我生命中最可耻的一页,也是我在党和您面前真正的罪过,就是我承认进行了反革命活动······事情是这样的:我没有经受住乌沙科夫和尼古拉也夫对我使用的严刑和虐待,特别是乌沙科夫,他乘我的脊椎骨骨折后还没有愈合之机,让我受到难以忍受的痛苦,逼着我诬告自己和别人。
    
    “我的交代大部分是马沙科夫授意或口授的,其余的是我把我记得的内务人民委员部有关西伯利亚的材料抄了一遍,把其中提到的事实加到自己头上。如果发现由乌沙科夫的和我签字的故事有不妥善之处,他们就逼着我在另一方案上面签字。例如:对鲁希莫维奇就是这样做的,开始叫我把他写进‘后备中心’,但后来什么都没有告诉我就把他勾掉了,同样的情况发生在所谓1935年布哈林建立的‘后备中心’并由他担任主席问题上。我开始时写上我是主席,但后来他们建议写上梅日拉马克,还有许多其它类似情况”我请求并恳求您委托人把我的案件全部调查清楚,这不是为了使您宽恕我,而是为了揭露这一卑鄙的阴谋,它象毒蛇一样把许多人缠住了,其中也有因为我的脆弱和有罪的诬告造成的后果。对您和党我始终没有叛变过。我知道,我是因为党和人民的敌人制造了反对我的卑鄙和丑恶的阴谋而将要牺牲。“按理说,这样重要的声明应该在中央委员会上讨论,但并未这样做。声明书送给了贝利亚,对政治局候补委员埃赫同志的严刑仍继续着。”
    
    1940年2月2日埃赫被提交法庭。在法庭上埃赫不承认自己有罪,并作了如下声明:
    
    “在所有我的所谓供词中,没有一个字是我自己写的,除去审讯记录下面我被迫的签字。口供是在检查员压力下招出的,他从逮捕我后就开始毒打我。之后我就开始写各种胡说八道的东西······对我最重要的是向法庭、党和斯大林说,我没有罪。我从未参加任何阴谋活动。我带着对党政策正确性的信任死去,正如我一生信任它一样。”
    
    2月4日埃赫被枪决了。(全场激动)现已无可争辩地查明,埃赫案件纯属伪造,他已得到昭雪。
    
    在法庭上全部推翻被迫作出的口供的,还有政治局候补委员卢祖塔克,他是1905年的党员,沙皇时代蹲过10年劳工营。最高法院军事审判庭审判会议记录记载了卢祖塔克下列声明:
    
    “他对法庭唯一请求是,告诉联共(布)中央,内务人民委员部有一个没有被割除的脓疮,它假造一些案件,逼着无辜的人们承认自己有罪。他认为对被指控的事实没有进行审查,没有给被告以任何机会来证明自己和那些别人供出的罪行并无任何关系。侦查的方法逼得被告胡编罪行和诬告完全无罪的人们,被告对自己的问题更不用说了。他请求法庭给他机会把这一切写给联共(布)中央。他向法庭保证,他本人从来没有反对我党政策的坏思想,因为他从来完全同意党在经济和文化建设方面的全部政策。”
    
    卢祖塔克的这一声明并没有受到注意,尽管卢祖塔克是当时中央监察委员会主席,而根据列宁的想法,这个委员会是为了党的团结而建立的。
    
    这个具有高度权威的党的机构的主席就成了粗暴专横的牺牲品。他甚至没有被召到中央政治局来,斯大林不愿和他谈话。他在二十分钟之内就判了罪,然后就被枪毙了。(群情激动)
    
    1955年进行了仔细调查,确定卢祖塔克被控事件是捏造的,根据造谣中伤的材料把他判了罪,卢祖塔克已被昭雪。
    
    从罗布森鲁姆(1906年党员,1937年被内务人民委员会列宁格勒局逮捕)的口供中可以看出,内务人民委员会工作人员如何用挑拨方法制造出各种“反苏中心”和“集团”。


    
    1955年检查内务人民委员会前审判员科马罗夫案件时,罗布森鲁姆谈到下列事实:1937年被捕时,他遭到严刑拷打,在拷打中向他索取关于他自己和其他一些人的假口供。后来把他带到扎科夫斯基的办公室,后者表示只要他在法庭中就1937 年内务人民委员会所捏造的“关于列宁格勒暗害、间谍、破坏、恐怖中心事件”做假口供,就可以释放他。扎科夫斯基以令人难以置信的厚颜无耻的态度说穿了故意制造的“反苏阴谋”的卑鄙“把戏”。
    
    罗布森鲁姆说:“扎科夫斯基首先在我面前展现了建立个这中心及其分部设想的几种方案······在向我介绍了这些方案以后,扎科夫斯基说,内务人民委员部正在筹备有关这个中心的案件,而且审讯将是公开的。将来受审判的是中心的头目,共四五人:丘多夫、乌加罗夫、斯莫罗金、波捷恩、沙波什尼科娃(丘多夫的妻子)等人,每个分部审判2、3人······关于列宁格勒中心的案件应该搞得象个样子,这里证人起决定作用。同样重要的是证人的社会地位(当然,是过去的地位)和党龄。扎科夫斯基说:什么都用不着你自己去编,内务部会为你准备好底稿,每个分部分开交代,你的任务是把底稿背下来,记住在法庭中可能提出的所有问题。这一案件可能要准备3、4个月,也可能半年,在这期间你就好好准备,不要使审讯人员和自己下不了台。审讯的过程和结果将决定你今后的命运。害怕了或说错了,只能怪自己。经受住了,你的脑袋可以保下来,将来公家管你的吃穿,一直到死。”
    
    在州里面,伪造口供的事件就更盛行了。在那个时候就是这样制造卑鄙事件的。内务人民委员会斯维尔德洛夫斯克州分局“破获”了所谓“乌拉尔起义总部”,是一个由右翼分子、托派、社会革命党、教会人士组成的集团,据说由党的斯维尔德洛夫斯克州委员会书记和联共(布)中央委员卡巴科夫(1914年党员)领导。根据当时的各种口供材料来看,几乎在所有的边区、州和共和国里都有过所谓“右翼托洛茨基派、间谍、恐怖、破坏、暗杀组织和中心”,而这些“组织”和“中心”不知道为什么都是由各州委、边区委或共和国中央的第一书记来领导。
    
    由于这种骇人听闻的伪造“案件”,其结果使人们相信了各种诽谤的“供词”,加上大肆强迫交代自己和揭发别人,致使数千名正直的、清白的共产党员就此牺牲。对党和国家的卓越活动家——柯秀尔、邱巴尔、波斯蒂舍夫、萨列夫及其他人也以同样方式捏造了种种“案件”。
    
    在这些年代里,大规模进行了没有根据的镇压,使党的干部遭受了重大损失。最恶劣的做法是要内务人民委员会在拟定提交军事法庭审判名单时,事先就定了这些人的刑罚。名单由叶若夫交给斯大林本人审批预定的惩处办法。1937年到1938年共有383份名单交给斯大林,涉及数千名党的、苏维埃的、共青团的、军事的和经济的工作人员,并得到了他的批准。   大部分这些案件现都在重新审理,其中大量是捏造和毫无根据的案件,因而宣告无效。仅举一例足以说明,即自1954年到现在,最高法院军事法庭已经恢复了7679人的名誉,其中很多人是昭雪的。
    
    大量逮捕党的、苏维埃的、经济的、军事的工作人员给我们国家,给社会主义的建设事业招致了重大的损失。大规模镇压消极地影响了党的政治和精神状态,产生了不确定感,使病态的怀疑得以蔓延,在共产党员中散布了互不信任的气氛。各色诽谤家和野心家都积极活动起来了。
    
    1938年联共(布)中央一月全会的决议使党的组织有了一定的复原。但广泛的镇压在1938年仍继续着。
    
    仅仅因为我党具有伟大的道德上和政治上的力量,它才能经受住1937年到1938年种种困难事件,培养了新干部。但毫无疑问,如果不是由于1937年到1938年大规模的没有根据的和不公正的镇压,使干部遭受如此重大的损失,我们向社会主义前进和国防上的准备就会实现得更加顺利一些。
    
    我们控诉叶若夫毒化了1937年,我们的控诉是正确的。但是应该回答这样一个问题:难道叶若夫不通过斯大林就能逮捕如柯秀尔吗?关于这个问题是否交换过意见?是否有政治局的决定?不,没有过,正如其他案件一样没有过的。难道叶若夫能够决定诸如著名党的活动家的命运这样重要的问题吗?不能,如果以为这只是叶若夫一手造成的,那就太天真了。很明显,这些案件是斯大林决定的,没有他的指示,没有他的批准,叶若夫是不能够做的。
    
    现在我们弄清了这些案件,恢复了阿秀尔、卢祖塔克、波斯蒂舍夫、柯萨列夫和其他人的名誉。有什么理由来逮捕他们和判决他们呢?经过对材料的研究,证明没有任何理由。他们和其他人一样,未经检察官的批准就遭到了逮捕。在那种情况下,根本不需要任何批准:在斯大林决定一切的时候,还要什么批准?在这些案件中他是总检察官。斯大林不仅给予了许可,而且根据自己的倡议发出逮捕的指示。关于这些都是应该说出来的,以便代表大会的代表们都明确了解,使你们能作正确的估计并得出相应的结论。
    
    事实证明:许多滥用职权的事都是根据斯大林的指示做的,根本不顾党的准则和苏维埃法制。斯大林是个非常不信任旁人的人,有病态的疑心,我们和他一起工作,都知道这一点。他会看着一个人说:“你的眼睛今天为什么躲躲闪闪的?”或者说:“你今天为什么扭转头去,不敢正眼看我?”病态的疑心使他不加区别地对人不信任,其中也有他认识多年的党的杰出的活动家。他到处都看到“敌人”、“两面派”、“间谍”。
    
    由于拥有无限的权力,他严酷专横,不仅在肉体上而且在精神上压制了人。过去形成了这种情况,使人们没有可能来表达自己的意志。当斯大林说某人应该逮捕,就应该相信他已是“人民敌人”,在国家保安机关中为非作歹的贝利亚匪帮就会用尽一切办法来证明被逮捕者的罪行和他们所捏造的材料的正确性。拿出的证据是什么呢?被逮捕者的招供。审判员就相信这些“招供”,并以此为据。怎么使一个没有犯罪的人招供自己有罪?只有一个办法,就是采用严刑逼供的办法,严刑拷打,使他失去知觉,失去理智,失去人的尊严。如此这般,“供词”即到手了。
    
    1939年当大规模的镇压浪潮开始缓和下来时,当地方党组织的领导人开始责备内务人民委员会的工作人员对被逮捕者实行逼供的时候,斯大林在 1939年1月10日向州委、边区委、共和国中央、内务人民委员会、内务人民委员会各局局长发出了一份密电,内容如下: “联共(布)中央说明,内务人民委员部使用体罚是从1937年起经联共(布)中央允许的。大家知道,所有资产阶级的侦查机构都对社会主义无产阶级代表使用体罚,而且其方式无奇不有。试问,为什么社会主义侦查机构对资产阶级的顽固特务,对工人阶级和集体农庄的凶恶敌人应该更人道一些呢?联共(布)中央认为,体罚方式今后还必须使用,是对那些显然是人民敌人的而又不肯缴械投降的人作为例外情况而使用的。这是完全正确的和适宜的方式。”
    
    因此,最最粗暴的破坏苏维埃法制,对一些无辜的人实行严刑拷打,逼迫他们交代自己和揭发别人的事,是由斯大林以联共(布)中央的名义批准的。
    
    不久前,就在代表大会召开前几天,我们党中央主席团开会时,把当时审讯柯秀尔、邱巴尔和柯萨列夫的审讯员罗多斯叫来审问。这是一个无用的鼠目寸光的人,一个道德堕落的败类。就是这个人,他决定了党的活动家的命运,并且也决定了在这个问题上的政策,因为他证明他们有罪的,也同时提供了作出重大政治结论的材材。
    
    请问,难道这样一个人的智力就能领导审讯工作,去证明象柯秀尔这样的人物有罪吗?不能,他如果没有相应的指示,能做的事不多。在中央主席团会议上他对我们说:“人家告诉我,说柯秀尔和邱巴尔是人民的敌人,因此,我作为一个审讯人员,就应该逼他们招供自己是敌人。”
    
    他只能通过长期的拷打才能做到这一点,在接到贝利亚具体指示后,他就这么干了。应该说明,在中央主席团会议上罗多斯无耻地说:“我认为我执行了党的命令。”斯大林关于对被捕者采用逼供办法的指示,就是这样实践贯彻的。
    
    这些和许多类似的情况说明,党正确地决定问题的一切准则都被破坏了,一切都服从了一个人的专横。
    
    斯大林集大权于一身,这在伟大卫国战争中造成了严重后果。假使拿我们的许多长篇小说、电影、历史、“学术研究论文”来看,把斯大林在卫国战争中的作用写得荒唐透顶。斯大林能预见一切,根据斯大林早已制定的战略计划苏军实行了“积极防御”的战术,即大家所熟悉的,先把德国人让到莫斯科、斯大林格勒城下的战术。苏军实行了这种战术,而且仅仅由于斯大林的天才,这才转入进攻,消灭了敌人。苏联武装力量,我们英勇的人民所取得的历史性胜利,就在这类小说、电影和“学术研究论文”中被彻头彻尾形容为斯大林军事领导的天才。
    
    我们应该仔细弄清楚这个问题,因为这不仅对历史,而且在政治上、教育上和实际上都有巨大意义。
    
    这个问题的实际情况如何?
    
    战前,我们的报纸和全部政治教育工作就大吹其牛,说什么如果敌人侵犯神圣的苏联领土,就给敌人以三重的打击,我们要在敌人的领土上进行战争,并且要以较少的牺牲取得胜利。但这些极其自信的宣言并无具体事实根据确保我们的边界不受侵犯。
    
    在战时和战后期间,斯大林曾提出这样的论点:我们人民在战争初期所经历的那种悲剧,是由于德国人对苏联 “突然”袭击的结果。可是,同志们,这完全不符事实。希特勒在德国刚一登台,就提出了要消灭共产主义这一任务。法西斯匪徒是公开这样说的,不曾掩盖他们的计划。为了实现这一侵略目标就签定了各种协定,建立了各种集团,诸如臭名远扬的柏林——罗马——东京轴心。在战前,无数事实明显地说明,希特勒竭尽全力要发动一场反苏战争,他集中了大量的兵力,其中有坦克部队,而且集结在苏联边界。
    
    从现在已发表的文件中可以看出,还在1941年4月3日,丘吉尔就通过驻苏大使克里浦斯当面提醒过斯大林,说德军开始重新布署,准备进攻苏联。很明显,丘吉尔这样做不是因为他对苏联人民有友好的感情。他这样做是有他帝国主义的目的,那就是让德苏两国投入一场血战,从而加强大英帝国的地位。同样,丘吉尔在他的文集中证实,他要“斯大林注意到威胁的危险性”。丘吉尔在4月18日以及以后几次电报中都反复强调了这一点。但这些警告均被斯大林当作耳边风。相反的,斯大林指示说不要相信这类情报,以免挑起事端。
    
    应当指出,从我们军方和外交渠道我们也得到了德军入侵苏联领土的威胁这类情报,但由于领导上的这种成见,在送呈这些情报时,人们都胆战心惊,在佑计其可靠性时,便大留余地。
    
    例如,1941年5月 6日我们驻柏林的武官沃龙佐夫从柏林报告说:“苏联公民包泽尔······报告海军副武官说,从希特勒总部的一个军官口中知道,德国准备5月14日经过芬兰、波罗的海、拉脱维亚入侵苏联。同时还准备对莫斯科和列宁格勒进行大规模的空袭,在国境线还要空投伞兵部队······”。
    
    1941年5月22日,我驻德副武官赫洛波夫报告说:“德国军队向我国进攻拟定为6月15日,但也可能在6月初开始······”
    
    1941年6月8日,我驻伦敦大使馆报告说:“就目前局势而言,克里浦斯深信德苏军事冲突是不可避免的,而且它的发生不会迟于6月中旬。克里浦斯说,目前德国集结在苏联边境的部队(包括空军和辅助部队)共有147个师······”。
    
    尽管已有这些非常严重的警告,但并没有采取必要的步骤,准备好保卫国土,防止突然袭击。
    
    我们是否有时间和能力来作这样的准备呢?有的。既有时间,又有能力。我们工业已完全有可能保证苏军一切必需品。事实证明,战争开始以后,敌人虽然占领了乌克兰、北高加索和我国西部其他地区,我们几乎丧失了整个工业的一半,失去了重要的工业区和产粮区,但苏联人民仍然能够在东部组织一切军用品,把从西部搬来的装备安装起来,为我们武装部队提供消灭敌人的一切必需品。
    
    假如我们的工业能及时地被动员起来,保证军队获得必需的物资,我们在战时的损失会少得多。从战争开始的头几天,可看出我军装备很差,没有足够的大炮、坦克和飞机来回击敌人。
    
    苏联的科学和技术在战前已提供了极好型号的坦克和大炮。但未曾组织好大量生产,而我们改装军队只是在战争前才开始的。因此,当敌人入侵苏联国土时,我们既没有足够的制造武器的旧机器,因为军工生产已不再使用这类机器,也没有新式武器,因为军工生产刚计划引进这类机器。高射炮的情况也很糟。反坦克武器的生产尚未组织好。许多防区在战争开始时没有防卫能力,因为旧武器已要回去,而新武器还未发下来。
    
    但事情还不止于坦克、大炮和飞机。战争开始时,我们甚至还没有足够的步枪去武装被召入伍的人们。我记得,在那几天里,我从基辅打电话给马林科夫说:“人们都志愿入伍了,要求发武器。请给我们送些军火来吧。”马林科夫回答道:“我们不能送武器来,步枪全要送给列宁格勒,你们自己设法武装起来吧。”
    
    武器状况就是这样。
    
    五
    
    在此同时,也不能不提起这样一件事:在希特勒军队入侵苏联之前不多久,基辅特别军区司令员科尔波诺斯(后来牺牲在前线)曾写信给斯大林,说德军已到了布格河,正准备进攻,看来,最近就要进攻了。由于这个情况,科尔波诺斯建议组织一条可靠的防线,从边境地区迁走30万居民,并在那里组织起几个强大的据点,挖好反坦克壕,筑起隐蔽部等等。
    
    莫斯科对这些建议的回答是,这是挑衅行为,边境地区不用任何准备措施,不要给德国人以借口,免得发动针对我国的军事行动。因此,我们的边境未曾做过足以回击敌人的准备工作。
    
    当法西斯部队已经侵入苏联领土并开始了作战行动时,从莫斯科来的命令是一枪不还击。为什么呢?因为斯大林认为战争尚未开始,边境地区是德军个别不守纪律部队的挑衅,如果我们回击,那就会成为德国发动战争的借口。
    
    我们知道还有这样的事。在希特勒军队侵犯苏联领土前夕,有一个德国人逃奔到我国境线上来,说德国部队接到命令将在 6月22日夜晚3时发动对苏联的进攻。当时立即把这事报告了斯大林,但是,这一信号仍然没有引起注意。
    
    你们看,忽视了一切,既忽视了个别军事首长的警告,也忽视了逃兵的报告,甚至忽视了敌军的明显行动。在这历史上千钧一发的时刻,党和国家领导人的警惕性难道就是这样吗?
    
    这种漠不关心,这种忽视明显事实的结果是什么呢?结果就是在最初数小时,在最初几天里,敌人在我国边境地区摧毁了我们大量的空军、炮兵和其他军事设施,消灭了我们大量干部,瓦解了部队的指挥,接着,我们已无法阻挡敌军深入我国:同时,1937年到1941年间,由于斯大林根据捏造的控诉而发生怀疑的结果,清洗了大量军事指挥员和政治工作干部,这也产生了严重后果,特别是在战争初期。在这几年之中,一部分指挥员从连、营直到高一级军事机关都遭到了镇压,那些在西班牙和远东有过作战经验的领导干部在这段时期内几乎全被消灭。
    
    大规模镇压军事干部的政策还破坏了部队纪律,因为在这几年之间党和青年团支部的各级指挥员,甚至士兵,都已习惯于“揭发”上级指挥员为暗藏的敌人。这在战争初期对部队纪律当然有很坏的影响。
    
    大家知道,在战争爆发前,我们有卓越的军事干部,他们无限忠于党和祖国。只要说说这一情况就够了,那些虽然在监狱里受尽折磨,但挣扎着活下来的人,从战争最初几天起就证明自己是真正的爱国者,他们英勇地为祖国荣誉而战。我指的是像罗科索夫斯基(他坐过牢),戈尔巴托夫,梅里茨柯夫(他参加这次代表大会),波德拉斯(他是个很好的军官,已牺牲在前线)和许许多多其他同志。但有很多这样的指挥员却在集中营或在监狱中死去了,军队再没有和他们见过面。这一切都发生在战争初期的局面中,这对我们祖国是个巨大的威胁。
    
    我们不要忘记,在前线遭到沉重的挫折和失败之后,斯大林曾经认为,一切都完结了。在这些日子的一次谈话中,他说,“列宁所缔造的一切,我们已经永远丧失了。”
    
    在这之后,斯大林实际上长时间没有领导作战,并停止做任何工作。只在一些政治局委员跑到他面前并和他说:必需立即采取某些措施来改善前线状况,他才重新领导起来。
    
    因此,在战争初期,祖国之所以危在旦夕,很大程度上是由斯大林领导党和国家的错误方法造成的。
    
    但问题还不仅在于战争的开始时刻,当时严重地瓦解了我们的军队并使我们遭到了沉重的损失,就是在战争开始之后,斯大林在干预战事过程中所表现的那种神经质和歇斯底里,也使我军遭受了严重的损失。
    
    斯大林根本不了解前线的真实情况,这是自然的,因为在整个卫国战争时期,他没有到过一个战线的区段,也没有到过一个解放了的城市,除了在前线局势稳定时刻曾经坐车到莫扎伊斯基公路(在莫斯科)短短地兜了一回。而对这次出行却写了不知多少异想天开的文学作品。然而,斯大林仍直接干预作战过程,发布命令,这些命令根本不考虑战线该段的实际情况而不能不造成人员的巨大损失。
    

I will allow myself in this connection to bring out one characteristic fact which illustrates how Stalin directed operations at the fronts. Present at this Congress is Marshal [Ivan] Bagramyan, who was once the head of operations in the Southwestern Front Headquarters and who can corroborate what I will tell you.

When an exceptionally serious situation for our Army developed in the Kharkov region in 1942, we correctly decided to drop an operation whose objective was to encircle [the city]. The real situation at that time would have threatened our Army with fatal consequences if this operation were continued.

We communicated this to Stalin, stating that the situation demanded changes in [our] operational plans so that the enemy would be prevented from liquidating a sizable concentration of our Army.

Contrary to common sense, Stalin rejected our suggestion. He issued the order to continue the encirclement of Kharkov, despite the fact that at this time many [of our own] Army concentrations actually were threatened with encirclement and liquidation.

I telephoned to [Marshal Alexander] Vasilevsky and begged him: “Alexander Mikhailovich, take a map” – Vasilevsky is present here – “and show comrade Stalin the situation that has developed.” We should note that Stalin planned operations on a globe.

(Animation in the hall.)

Yes, comrades, he used to take a globe and trace the front line on it. I said to comrade Vasilevsky: “Show him the situation on a map. In the present situation we cannot continue the operation which was planned. The old decision must be changed for the good of the cause.”

Vasilevsky replied, saying that Stalin had already studied this problem. He said that he, Vasilevsky, would not see Stalin further concerning this matter, because the latter didn’t want to hear any arguments on the subject of this operation.

After my talk with Vasilevsky, I telephoned to Stalin at his dacha. But Stalin did not answer the phone and Malenkov was at the receiver. I told comrade Malenkov that I was calling from the front and that I wanted to speak personally to Stalin. Stalin informed me through Malenkov that I should speak with Malenkov. I stated for the second time that I wished to inform Stalin personally about the grave situation which had arisen for us at the front. But Stalin did not consider it convenient to pick up the phone and again stated that I should speak to him through Malenkov, although he was only a few steps from the telephone.

After “listening” in this manner to our plea, Stalin said: “Let everything remain as it is!”

And what was the result of this? The worst we had expected. The Germans surrounded our Army concentrations and as a result [the Kharkov counterattack] lost hundreds of thousands of our soldiers. This is Stalin’s military “genius.” This is what it cost us.

(Movement in the hall.)


    我可以举一个典型的事实证明斯大林如何领导前线。

Image result for Marshal [Ivan] Bagramyan Soviet army

巴格拉米扬元帅出席了这次代表大会,他当时是西南战线的指挥员,可以证实我现在向你们讲的话。   


1942年,哈尔科夫地区我军遭到了极端严重的局面,我们当时通过了停止包围哈尔科夫的正确决定,因为在当时的实际情况下,继续进行这一战斗,将会对我军造成严重的后果。
    
    我们向斯大林报告此事,说情况要求我们改变行动计划,以免敌人消灭我们集中在一起的大部队。斯大林一反常识,拒绝了我们的建议。他命令我们继续进行包围哈尔科夫的战役,而当时我们许多兵团已面临包围受歼的现实威胁。
    
    我打电话给华西列夫斯基,对他说,“请拿起地图,阿列克赛·米哈依罗维奇,”华西列夫斯基现坐在这里,“请给斯大林同志看看情况是多么的复杂。”要知道斯大林是按地球仪计划战役的。是的,同志们,他的确常常拿着地球仪,在上面寻找战线的。我当时对华西列夫斯基同志说:“拿地图给斯大林同志看,在目前情况下,已不能继续原来的战役。为了事业的利益,应修改原来的决定。”华西列夫斯基对我说,斯大林早已研究过这个问题,并且他华西列夫斯基不能再向斯大林谈这件事,因为斯大林不愿再听取关于这一战役的任何意见。
    
    在和华西列夫斯基谈话后,我打电话到斯大林别墅,但斯大林不接电话,由马林科夫来接。我对马林科夫同志说,我从前线打电话,想亲自同斯大林谈话。斯大林通过马林科夫告诉我,我应该跟马林科夫谈。我再次表示想亲自向斯大林报告前线的严重情况,但斯大林认为没有必要听电话,再次要我通过马林科夫同他谈。
    

Inline image

Second World War: Second Battle of Kharkov, May 1942

    用这种方式“听取”了我的请示后,斯大林说:“一切照原来的办”。结果呢?结果发生了我们估计的最坏情况,德国人包围了我们的部队,使我们损失数十万士兵。这就是斯大林的“军事天才”,这就是我们的代价!
    
    战后某一天,斯大林和政治局委员见面时,米高扬说起赫鲁晓夫当时关于哈尔科夫战役的电话是对的;当时不应该不支持他。你们不知道当时斯大林怎样地火冒三丈!他怎么能够承认他,斯大林,当时竟是错误的!他不是“天才”吗?天才不可能是错误的。任何人都会犯错误,但斯大林认为他从来不会犯错误,永远是对的。他从来也没有对谁承认过自己大的或小的错误,尽管事实是,他在理论问题上和实际活动中已犯了不少错误。代表大会后,我们应该对许多战役的评价重新审查,应对它们作出正确的解释。
    
    在我们阻止敌人、转入进攻之前,斯大林所坚持的战术使我们付出了巨大的血的代价,因为他根本不了解作战的实质。
    
    军人们知道,早在1941年底,斯大林为了一个村庄一个村庄的争夺,要求以连续的正面进攻来代替从侧翼迂回、深入敌后的大规模运动战。我们便因此遭受了巨大的损失,直到我们这些肩负指挥整个战争重担的将军们扭转了局势,开始了灵活、机动的战术,才使战线上的局势立刻发生有利于我们的重大变化。
    

All the more shameful was the fact that after our great victory over the enemy, which cost us so dearly, Stalin began to downgrade many of the commanders who had contributed so much to it. [This was] because Stalin ruled out any chance that services rendered at the front might be credited to anyone but himself.

Stalin was very much interested in assessments of comrade [Grigory] Zhukov as a military leader. He asked me often for my opinion of Zhukov. I told him then, “I have known Zhukov for a long time. He is a good general and a good military leader.”

After the war Stalin began to tell all kinds of nonsense about Zhukov. Among it [was] the following: “You praised Zhukov, but he does not deserve it. They say that before each operation at the front Zhukov used to behave as follows: He used to take a handful of earth, smell it and say, ‘We can begin the attack,’ or its opposite, ‘The planned operation cannot be carried out.’” I stated at the time, “Comrade Stalin, I do not know who invented this, but it is not true.”

It is possible that Stalin himself invented these things for the purpose of minimizing the role and military talents of Marshal Zhukov.

In this connection, Stalin very energetically popularized himself as a great leader. In various ways he tried to inculcate the notion that the victories gained by the Soviet nation during the Great Patriotic War were all due to the courage, daring, and genius of Stalin and of no one else. Just like [a] Kuzma Kryuchkov, he put one dress on seven people at the same time.

(Animation in the hall.)

In the same vein, let us take for instance our historical and military films and some [of our] literary creations. They make us feel sick. Their true objective is propagating the theme of praising Stalin as a military genius. Let us recall the film, The Fall of Berlin. Here only Stalin acts. He issues orders in a hall in which there are many empty Chairs. Only only one man approaches him to report something to him – it is [Alexander] Poskrebyshev, his loyal shield-bearer.

(Laughter in the hall.)

And where is the military command? Where is the Politburo? Where is the Government? What are they doing, and with what are they engaged? There is nothing about them in the film. Stalin acts for everybody, he does not reckon with anyone. He asks no one for advice. Everything is shown to the people in this false light. Why? To surround Stalin with glory– contrary to the facts and contrary to historical truth.

The question arises: Where is the military, on whose shoulders rested the burden of the war? It is not in the film. With Stalin’s inclusion, there was no room left for it.

Not Stalin, but the Party as a whole, the Soviet Government, our heroic Army, its talented leaders and brave soldiers, the whole Soviet nation – these are the ones who assured victory in the Great Patriotic War.

(Tempestuous and prolonged applause.)


    最可鄙的是,在我们付出了巨大代价,打败了敌人,取得伟大胜利后,斯大林即开始攻击许多在战争中作出贡献的将领,因为斯大林不愿意将前线上的功绩除了他自己以外,归功于任何一个人。斯大林对于朱可夫同志作为一个军事指挥员的评价很感兴趣。他不止一次问过我对朱可夫的看法,我对他说,“我很早就知道朱可夫,他是个很好的将军,很好的司令员”。
    
    战争结束后,斯大林就开始散布各种各样关于朱可夫的谣传,例如他对我说,“你总是称赞朱可夫,可他不值得如此赞扬。有人说朱可夫在战役开始前,总是抓一把土闻一闻,然后说‘可以开始进攻’,或者相反地说‘不能按计划进行’。”那时,我回答道:“斯大林同志,我不知道谁这样说,这不是事实”。
    
    看来,这是斯大林自己这样说的,以便降低朱可夫元帅的军事才能和作用。   在这个意义上,斯大林自己非常用心地来渲染自己是个伟大的将领,千方百计地向人们灌输这样的说法,即苏联人民在伟大卫国战争中获得的一切胜利与他人无关,都应归功于斯大林的勇敢、果断和天才。就象库斯玛·克留契可夫(著名的哥萨克士兵,在反抗德国人时,立下英雄业绩——英译者注)一枪挑死七个人一样。
    
    请大家回忆一下《攻克柏林》,影片上只有斯大林一个人在活动,他在放着空椅的大厅里发布命令,只有一个人走近他,向他低声报告些什么,这个人就是波斯克列贝舍夫,斯大林忠贞不渝的侍从。而军事领导者在哪里?政治局在哪里?政府又在哪里?他们在做些什么,关心些什么呢?这在影片中看不到。斯大林包揽一切,不和任何人商量,也不需要听别人的意见。一切的一切就是用这种歪曲的形式放映给人民看的。为了什么?为了颂扬斯大林,而这一切是违反事实,违反历史事实的。
    
    试问,肩负整个战争重担的军人在哪里?在影片中看不到他们,除斯大林外,没有他们的位置。
    
    不是斯大林,而是我们整个的党,苏联政府,我们英勇的军队,它的干练的将军和勇敢的士兵,全体苏联人民,他们才是保证伟大卫国战争胜利的人。
    
    党中央委员、部长、经济人员、苏联文化工作者、地方党和苏维埃的领导人、工程师和技师,每个人都在自己的岗位上为保证战胜敌人,贡献着自己的力量和知识。
    
    我们的后方,表现了无上的英雄主义,光荣的工人阶级、集体农民、苏联知识界在党组织的领导下,他们克服了战争时期的艰难困苦,将自己的一切力量贡献给保卫祖国的事业。
    
    我们的苏联妇女,在战争中也立下了极伟大的功绩,她们挑起了在工厂、农庄、经济文化各部门生产工作的重担。我们的英勇的青年也立下了功绩,他们在前线和后方的各个岗位上,为保卫苏维埃祖国,粉碎敌人作出了贡献。
    
    我们的苏联军人,各级军事指挥员和政治工作干部的功勋是不朽的。他们在战争初期失去了相当一部分队伍,但并未因此惊慌失措,他们在战争中进行整编,在战争中建立和锻炼出一支能击退强大而狡猾的敌人的进攻并能粉碎它的队伍。
    
    苏联人民在伟大的卫国战争中拯救了东西方亿万人民免受法西斯奴役威胁的这一极伟大的功绩,将永远活在世世代代人类心中。
    
    胜利地结束战争的主要作用和功勋归于我们的共产党,苏联的武装力量和千百万为党所培养的苏联人民。
    
    同志们!现在谈谈其它一些事实。苏联有权利被认为是多民族国家的范例,因为居住在我们伟大祖国的一切民族的友谊和权利,在事实上已得到了保证。斯大林所做的粗暴破坏苏维埃国家民族政策和列宁主义原则的行为是不可容忍的。这就是把整个民族包括所有的共产党员和共青团员,从生长的地方大规模迁走,而这种迁移绝不是从军事方面考虑而决定的。
    
    还在1943年底,即伟大的卫国战争前线上已经发生了有利于苏联的决定性转折的时候,通过并实行了将所有卡腊查耶夫人从占有的土地上迁出的决定。在同一时期,1943年12月底,卡尔梅茨自治共和国的全体居民遭到了同样的命运。1944年3月,切禅和印古什人从自己居住的地方全部迁出,切禅印古什自治共和国则被取消了。1944年4月,从卡巴尔达—巴尔卡尔自治共和国境内将所有巴尔卡尔人迁到遥远的地方,共和国则改名为卡巴尔达自治共和国。乌克兰人避免了这样的命运,因为他们人口太多,没有地方迁移,否则,他也会把他们迁到别处去。
    
    不要说是马克思列宁主义者,任何思想健全的人也想象不出,可以把个别人或个别集团的敌对行动的责任,加在包括妇女、孩子、老人、共产党员和共青团员在内的整个民族头上,使他们蒙受大规模的迫害和痛苦。
    
    卫国战争结束后,苏联人民以自豪的心情庆祝用巨大牺牲和艰苦奋斗的代价所取得的胜利。国家的政治热情极为高涨,战争结束后,党更加团结了,战争烈火锻炼了党的干部。在这样的情况下,任何人都不会想到在党内会有阴谋的可能。
    
    恰恰在这个时候,突然发生了所谓“列宁格勒事件”。现已证实,这个事件是伪造的。无辜牺牲的,有沃兹涅先斯基、库兹涅佐夫、罗吉昂诺夫、波普科夫等同志。
    
    众所周知,沃兹涅先斯基和库兹涅佐夫是很有才干的著名领导人。他们一度很接近斯大林。只说明一点就足以证明。是斯大林提拔沃兹涅先斯基为部长会议第一副主席,库兹涅佐夫为中央书记的。斯大林还委托库兹涅佐夫监督国家保安机关,这一事实足以说明他受到多么大的信任。
    
    这些人被宣布为“人民敌人”并被消灭一事是怎样发生的呢?事实说明,“列宁格勒事件”也是斯大林对党和干部实行专横的结果。
    
    如果中央委员会、中央政治局情况还正常的话,这类性质的事件就会按照党内的规定来加以研究,查清一切事实,这事以及其他类似的事,就不会发生。
    
    六
    
    在斯大林活着的时候,由于采取了某些方法——我在上面已举了《斯大林传略》的例子,在一切事件中,甚至在十月社会主义革命中,列宁似乎只起了次要的作用。在很多电影和文学作品里,列宁的形象是表现得不正确的,是令人不能容忍地被歪曲了的。
    
    斯大林很喜欢看《难忘的1919年》这部电影,影片实际上把他描写成站在铁甲车的踏板上,举起大刀砍杀敌人。请我们亲爱的朋友伏罗希洛夫鼓起勇气写出斯大林的真实情形。因为他是知道斯大林怎样打仗的。伏罗希洛夫同志做这件事,当然不容易,但他做的话,那是好的。我们所有的人,我们的人民和党都会赞成这件事,连我们的子孙也会感激。
    
    在阐明与十月革命和国内战争有关的事件时,总是把事情说成这样,处处是斯大林起主要作用,总是他提醒列宁应当怎样做,做什么。这是对列宁的诽谤。(长时间的掌声)假如我说在座的99%在1924年以前很少听说过斯大林,可我们都知道列宁,我这样说,大概没有犯违背事实真相的罪过吧。全党都知道列宁,我们全体人民,从天真的孩子到白发苍苍的老人都知道列宁。
    
    对于这一切都应该坚决予以修正,一定要把列宁的作用,党的作用,以及人民是创造性建设者的作用,在历史、文学和艺术中得到正确的反映。
    
    同志们!个人崇拜助长了党的工作和经济活动中的有害方法,粗暴地破坏了党内民主和苏维埃民主,产生了命令主义,各种歪风,掩饰缺点和粉饰现实。我们这里曾经有过不少奉承拍马、擅长欺骗和虚报成绩的人。
    
    不能不看到,由于许多党和苏维埃以及经济工作领导人遭到逮捕,我们许多干部开始对工作失去信心,顾虑重重,害怕新鲜事物,甚至连自己的影子都提防,在工作中逐渐消沉下去。就拿党和苏维埃机关的决议来说吧,它们照套公式,往往不考虑具体情况。事情甚至发展到这种地步,党的干部即便在一些不大的会议上发言,都照本宣读。这种作法会使党和苏维埃的工作公式化,使机关官僚主义化。
    
    斯大林不了解现实生活,不考虑地方的具体情况,这可以从他领导农业的例子中看得很清楚。
    
    凡是对国内情况稍感兴趣的人,就会发现农业状况是很严重的,但斯大林却从未注意到这点。我们向斯大林说过没有呢?是的,我们说过。但他不支持我们。为什么?因为斯大林一直没有下去过,没有同工人和农民见过面,不了解下情。  斯大林只是从电影上知道国内情况和农业的,这些影片把农业状况大大美化了,集体农庄生活在很多电影里被描写成火鸡肥鹅满桌。斯大林显然认为,实际情况就是如此。
    
    列宁对待生活的态度完全不同,他任何时候都密切地联系群众,接见农民代表,经常到工厂去讲演,到农村同农民谈话。
    
    斯大林一向同人民隔绝,他一直没有下去过,几十年都是如此。他在1928年1月去西伯利亚解决粮食采购问题,是他去农村的最后一次。可见,他怎么能了解地方上的情形呢?  当斯大林在一次会上听到我们的农业状况很严重,肉类及其他高产品的生产情况更糟,于是成立了一个委员会,责成它起草“关于进一步发展集体农庄和国营农场中兽牧业的措施”的决议草案。我们起草了决议草案。
    
    当然,我们当时建议并没有包括一切可能性,但确实规定了提高集体农庄和国营农场畜牧业产量的办法。当时建议提高这些产品的价格,使集体农庄庄员、农业机器站和国营农场的工人更加从物质利益出发来关心畜牧业的发展。但是,我们起草的决议案未被通过,在1953年2月终于完全被抛在一旁。
    
    在研究这个决议案的时候,斯大林还建议把集体农庄和庄员们的税额再增加400 亿卢布,因为在他看来,农民生活已很富裕,一个社员只消卖一只小鸡,就能缴清国家的税收。你们可以想象,这意味着什么。400亿卢布是一笔很大的数目,农庄庄员把全部产品卖给政府,也换不来这笔钱。例如,1952年集体农庄和农庄在员缴纳和卖给政府的全部产品才值262亿8千万卢布。
    
    难道斯大林的上述建议是有某种材料作根据吗?当然没有。在这方面,他对事实和材料都不感兴趣。既然斯大林这样说了,事情也必然就是这样,因为他是“天才”,而天才是决不需要计数的,只要看一下就能立即下指示。他说了以后,其他人必须随声附和,并颂扬他的英明。
    
    但提高农业税400亿卢布的建议有多少英明呢?一点也没有。因为这项建议不是从对现实的真实估计出发,而是一个脱离了生活的人空想出来的。现在,我们在农业方面已逐步开始摆脱困境。第二十次代表大会代表们的发言,使我们感到振奋。许多代表说,有一切条件,不是在五年内,而是在两三年内,完成第六个五年计划关于生产主要畜牧产品的任务。我们相信,新五年计划的任务,一定会胜利完成。
    
    同志们!当我们现在尖锐地批评斯大林生前广泛流行的个人崇拜,分析它是怎样地与马克思主义精神不相容时,各方面的人会问:怎么会这样呢?斯大林领导我们党和国家已三十年,并在他生前取得了许多胜利,难道可以否认这一点吗?我认为,提出这样问题的,只能是被个人崇拜蒙蔽和迷惑了的人,他们不了解革命和苏维埃国家的本质,不是真正的、列宁主义式的了解党和人民在苏维埃社会发展中的作用。
    
    社会主义革命是由工人阶级以及受到部分中农支持的贫农完成的,是布尔什维克党所领导的人民完成的。列宁的伟大功绩在于,他建立了工人阶级战斗的政党,用马克思主义关于社会发展规律的理论,用无产阶级同资本主义斗争的胜利学说武装了它,他从人民群众革命斗争的火焰里锻炼了党。在斗争过程中,党一贯捍卫人民的利益,成为人民的久经考验的领袖,引导劳动者取得政权,建立了世界上第一个社会主义国家。
    
    你们都清楚地记得列宁所说的英明的话,即苏维埃国家之所以强大,是因为有千百万创造历史的人民群众的觉悟性。
    
    由于党的组织工作,由于许多地方组织,由于我们伟大人民的自我牺牲的劳动,我们取得了历史性的胜利。这些胜利是整个党和人民付出巨大努力和积极工作的结果,绝非个人崇拜时期所说的,仅仅是斯大林个人领导的成果。
    
    如果我们作为马克思主义者和列宁主义者来看这个问题,那么应该直截了当地说,斯大林在世最后几年内形成的领导状况,成了苏维埃社会发展道路上的严重障碍。
    
    斯大林长期不考虑党和国家生活许多重要和最迫切的问题。在斯大林的领导下,我们同其他国家的和平关系时常受到威胁,因为个人的决定只能而且往往确实使问题复杂化。
    
    近年来,当我们设法排除个人崇拜的有害做法并在内外政策上采取了适当措施后,大家可以看到,人们的积极性多么高涨,广大劳动群众的积极性发展得有多快,在我们的经济和文化建设中发挥了多么巨大的作用。
    
    某些同志会问:中央政治局委员当时干什么去了?他们当时为什么不反对个人崇拜,而要到目前才来反对呢?
    
    首先应该了解,政治局委员对这些问题在不同的时期有不同的看法。起先,许多人都积极支持斯大林,因为斯大林是马克思主义最强的一个,他的逻辑,他的力量和意志,对于干部和党的工作有着巨大的影响。
    
    大家知道,斯大林在列宁逝世后,特别在头几年内,曾积极为列宁主义而斗争,反对列宁学说的敌人和歪曲者。根据列宁的学说,以它的中央委员会为首的党,在全国开展了大规模的社会主义工业化、农业集体化和文化革命。当时斯大林很得人心,人们同情他,支持他。党当时要进行斗争,反对那些使我们国家离开正确的列宁道路的人,同托洛茨基、季诺维也夫和右派、资产阶级民族主义者进行斗争。这个斗争是必需的。但在以后,斯大林愈来愈滥用职权,开始迫害党和国家的著名人物。如上所说,斯大林正是这样对待我们党和国家的杰出活动家如柯秀尔、卢祖塔克、埃赫、波斯蒂舍夫及其他许多人。当时如果有人试图对毫无根据的怀疑和诬告提出反对意见,结果会使提意见的人遭到迫害。波斯蒂舍夫同志被清洗就是例证。在一次谈话中,斯大林表示了对波斯蒂舍夫不满,并问道:“你究竟是什么人?”波斯蒂舍夫清楚地回答说:“我是个布尔什维克,斯大林同志,一个布尔什维克。”这句话起先被认为是对斯大林的不尊重,后来被看成是有害行为,最后则毫无根据地宣布波斯蒂舍夫为“人民敌人”而处决掉了。
    
    对于那时形成的气氛,我同布尔加宁曾不止一次地谈起过。一次,我俩同乘一辆车,他对我说,“有时一个人到斯大林那儿去,是被当作朋友请去的,可当他在斯大林那儿坐下后,他就不知道下一步会送他到那里,送回家,还是送进监狱?”
    
    显然,这种气氛使政治局委员置于极端困难的境地,如果再考虑到最近几年没有召开中央全会,政治局会议也偶尔召开,那么就会明白,政治局委员要反对某种不合理或错误的措施,反对领导工作的严重错误和缺点,是多么的困难。
    
    如上面所说,许多决议是一个人作出的,或只是传阅征询意见,并未经过集体的讨论。大家熟悉被斯大林迫害致死的政治局委员沃兹涅先斯基同志的悲惨命运。应当指出,关于撤销他政治局职位的决议,并未经过讨论,只是决定后通知了事。同样,关于撤销库兹涅佐夫和罗吉昂夫同志职务的建议,也是这样的。
    
    中央政治局的作用被大大降低了,它的工作被政治局内部的各种小委员会即所谓“五人小组”、“六人小组”、“七人小组”、“九人小组”等分割掉了。例如,1946年10月3日政治局的决议称:
    
    “斯大林建议:
    
    “1 、政治局外事委员会(六人小组)今后除考虑对外事务外,还应负责国内建设和对内政策。
    
    “2 、苏联国家计委主席沃兹涅先斯基同志参加六人小组,六人小组改名为七人小组。
    
    中央委员会书记 约·斯大林(签字)”
    
    这简直是玩扑克的人使用的语汇!
    
    在政治局内成立“五人小组”、“六人小组”、“七人小组”和“九人小组”等各种委员会,显然破坏了集体领导的原则,结果,政治局一些委员就处于这种境地,被排除参加最重要问题的决定。
    
    我们党最老的党员之一伏罗希洛夫同志发现他的处境十分尴尬。多年来,他实际上被剥夺参加政治局会议的权利。斯大林禁止他出席政治局会议,不准送文件给他。当伏罗希洛夫同志得知政治局开会时,每次他都打电话问,他可否出席会议,斯大林有时准许,但总表示不满意。由于极端的过敏和猜疑,斯大林甚至达到荒谬可笑的地步,如怀疑伏罗希洛夫似是英国特务。(笑声)是的,确实怀疑他是英国间谍,并在他家里安装了专门的窃听器,窃听他的谈话。斯大林也排除了政治局委员安德列也夫参加政治局工作。这是最肆无忌惮的专横。
    
    举第十九次代表大会后第一次中央全会为例,斯大林在会上发了言,并在全会上给莫洛托夫和米高扬做了鉴定,对我党这些老干部提出了毫无根据的谴责。如果斯大林再继续领导几个月,莫洛托夫和米高扬同志可能就不会在这次党代表大会上发言了,这种情况不是不可能的。
    
    斯大林显然有自己的计划去迫害一些老的政治局委员。他不止一次地说,政治局应该换一批新人。他在第十九次党代会后,建议选举二十五人的中央委员会主席团的目的,就是要排除一些老的政治局委员,选入一些经验较少的入,以便百般颂扬他。可以设想,这样做是为了以后消灭政治局的老委员,以便把我们正在研究的斯大林的一切无耻行径掩盖起来。
    
    同志们!为了不重复过去的错误,中央委员会宣布坚决反对个人崇拜。我们认为,斯大林被过分考大了。毫无疑问,斯大林过去对党、对工人阶级和国际工人运动是有巨大功绩的。问题由于上述情况而复杂起来,即上面所讲的一切是斯大林在世时,在他领导下,得到他的同意而干下的。斯大林还相信这一切乃是捍卫劳动者的利益不受敌人阴谋和帝国主义阵营的进攻和侵害所必需。他把这一切都看成是为了保卫工人阶级的利益,劳动人民的利益,社会主义和共产主义胜利的利益。我们不能不说这是一个轻率的暴君的行为。他认为这是为了党和劳动群众的利益,为了保卫革命成果的利益所应该做的事。整个悲剧就在于此。
    
    同志们!列宁不止一次地强调,谦虚是一个真正布尔什维克绝对必需的品质。列宁本人就体现了最伟大的谦虚。我们不能说在这个问题上,在各个方面,我们都遵循了列宁的榜样。仅举一例即足以说明问题。我们的许多城市、工厂、集体农庄、国营农场、苏维埃和文化机构都被当作一份“私有财产”,如果可以这样说的话,分给了现在还健在的一些党和国家的活动家,即以他们的名字来命名。我们许多人都参与了这一行动,用我们的名字命名城镇、事业和集体农庄。应该纠正这种情况。
    
    但这应当沉着镇静,逐步去做。中央将仔细研究这个问题,以便不在这个问题上再犯错误,发生偏差。我还记得当时乌克兰得知柯秀尔被捕的情况。基辅电台平时总这样开始广播的:“这里是柯秀尔广播电台”,因为电台是以他的名字命名的。有一天广播时,不提柯秀尔的名字,听众马上知道他出了问题,知道他也许被捕了。所以,如果我们到处改换招牌,改变名称,人们可能认为这些同志,这些企业、集体农庄、城市的命名者,又出了什么问题,大概他们又被捕了。
    
    平常我们以什么来评判某个领导者的威信和作用呢?就看有多少城市、工厂和集体农庄、国营农场是以他的名字来命名的。难道现在还不是结束这种“私有财产”和实行工厂、集体农庄和国营农场“国有化”的时候吗?(笑声、掌声和呼声:“对”)这对我们的事业是有利的,况且,个人崇拜也表现在这个方面。  我们必须极其严肃地对待个人崇拜这个问题。我们不能把这件事捅到党外,尤其不能捅到报刊上去发表。正因为如此,我们才在代表大会关起门来的会议上,报告这个问题。我们应当知道分寸,不要把炮弹送给敌人,不要在他们面前宣扬我们的家丑。我想代表大会的代表会正确理解和对待这些措施的。
    
    同志们!我们必须坚块彻底地揭露个人崇拜,无论在思想理论上和实际工作中,都要作出相应的结论。
    
    为此,必须:
    
    第一,布尔什维克式地谴责和根除个人崇拜,把它看成是和马克思列宁主义相敌对,与党的领导原则和党的生活准则毫不相容的东西,要同形形色色恢复个人崇拜的一切企图,进行无情的斗争。
    
    要在我们党的全部思想工作中,恢复并且坚决贯彻马克思列宁主义学说最重要的原则,即人民是历史的创造者,是人类一切物质财富和精神财富的创造者,马克思主义政党在改造社会和争取共产主义胜利斗争中所起的决定性作用。
    
    在这方面,我们要做大量的工作,从马克思列宁主义立场出发,批判地审查和纠正历史、哲学、经济学以及文学艺术等方面因个人崇拜而广泛流行的那些错误观点。特别是必须在最近的将来,根据科学的马克思主义客观精神,编写一部严肃的党史教材,一部苏联社会史教材,和一部关于国内战争和伟大卫国战争的著作。
    
    第二,一贯坚决地继续党中央委员会在近几年所进行的工作,即在一切党组织中从上到下地严格遵守列宁的党的领导原则,首先是集体领导这个主要原则,遵守党章规定的党的生活准则,广泛开展批评与自我批评。
    
    第三,完全恢复体现在苏联宪法中关于苏维埃社会主义民主的列宁主义原则,同一切滥用职权人们的专横行为进行斗争。必须彻底纠正长期以来因个人崇拜的消极影响所累积而成的破坏革命的社会主义法制的罪恶现象。
    
    同志们:
    
    苏联共产党第二十次代表大会表明了我党团结一致、不可动摇的新力量,表明全党团结在中央委员会周围,表明它有决心完成建设共产主义的伟大任务。我们现在能够广泛地提出克服敌视马克思列宁主义的个人崇拜和消除它造成的严重后果等问题,证明我们党有着伟大的道德力量和政治力量。
    
    毫无疑问,为自己第二十次代表大会的历史性决议所武装起来的我们党,一定会领导苏联人民沿着列宁的道路,走向新的胜利。
    
    我们党的胜利旗帜——列宁主义万岁!
    
    (热烈的、长时间的掌声,全场欢呼、起立)

Such a belief about a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years. The objective of the present report is not a thorough evaluation of Stalin’s life and activity. Concerning Stalin’s merits, an entirely sufficient number of books, pamphlets and studies had already been written in his lifetime. The role of Stalin in the preparation and execution of the Socialist Revolution, in the Civil War, and in the fight for the construction of socialism in our country, is universally known. Everyone knows it well.

At present, we are concerned with a question which has immense importance for the Party now and for the future – with how the cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually growing, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of Party principles, of Party democracy, of revolutionary legality.

Because not all as yet realize fully the practical consequences resulting from the cult of the individual, [or] the great harm caused by violation of the principle of collective Party direction and by the accumulation of immense and limitless power in the hands of one person, the Central Committee considers it absolutely necessary to make material pertaining to this matter available to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Allow me first of all to remind you how severely the classics of Marxism-Leninism denounced every manifestation of the cult of the individual. In a letter to the German political worker Wilhelm Bloss, [Karl] Marx stated: “From my antipathy to any cult of the individual, I never made public during the existence of the [1st] International the numerous addresses from various countries which recognized my merits and which annoyed me. I did not even reply to them, except sometimes to rebuke their authors. [Fredrich] Engels and I first joined the secret society of Communists on the condition that everything making for superstitious worship of authority would be deleted from its statute. [Ferdinand] Lassalle subsequently did quite the opposite.”

Sometime later Engels wrote: “Both Marx and I have always been against any public manifestation with regard to individuals, with the exception of cases when it had an important purpose. We most strongly opposed such manifestations which during our lifetime concerned us personally.”

The great modesty of the genius of the Revolution, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, is known. Lenin always stressed the role of the people as the creator of history, the directing and organizational roles of the Party as a living and creative organism, and also the role of the Central Committee.

Marxism does not negate the role of the leaders of the working class in directing the revolutionary liberation movement.

While ascribing great importance to the role of the leaders and organizers of the masses, Lenin at the same time mercilessly stigmatized every manifestation of the cult of the individual, inexorably combated [any] foreign-to-Marxism views about a “hero” and a “crowd,” and countered all efforts to oppose a “hero” to the masses and to the people.

Lenin taught that the Party’s strength depends on its indissoluble unity with the masses, on the fact that behind the Party follows the people – workers, peasants, and the intelligentsia. Lenin said, “Only he who believes in the people, [he] who submerges himself in the fountain of the living creativeness of the people, will win and retain power.”

Lenin spoke with pride about the Bolshevik Communist Party as the leader and teacher of the people. He called for the presentation of all the most important questions before the opinion of knowledgeable workers, before the opinion of their Party. He said: “We believe in it, we see in it the wisdom, the honor, and the conscience of our epoch.”

Lenin resolutely stood against every attempt aimed at belittling or weakening the directing role of the Party in the structure of the Soviet state. He worked out Bolshevik principles of Party direction and norms of Party life, stressing that the guiding principle of Party leadership is its collegiality. Already during the pre-Revolutionary years, Lenin called the Central Committee a collective of leaders and the guardian and interpreter of Party principles. “During the period between congresses,” Lenin pointed out, “the Central Committee guards and interprets the principles of the Party.”

Underlining the role of the Central Committee and its authority, Vladimir Ilyich pointed out: “Our Central Committee constituted itself as a closely centralized and highly authoritative group.”

During Lenin’s life the Central Committee was a real expression of collective leadership: of the Party and of the nation. Being a militant Marxist-revolutionist, always unyielding in matters of principle, Lenin never imposed his views upon his co-workers by force. He tried to convince. He patiently explained his opinions to others. Lenin always diligently saw to it that the norms of Party life were realized, that Party statutes were enforced, that Party congresses and Plenary sessions of the Central Committee took place at their proper intervals.

In addition to V. I. Lenin’s great accomplishments for the victory of the working class and of the working peasants, for the victory of our Party and for the application of the ideas of scientific Communism to life, his acute mind expressed itself also in this. [Lenin] detected in Stalin in time those negative characteristics which resulted later in grave consequences. Fearing the future fate of the Party and of the Soviet nation, V. I. Lenin made a completely correct characterization of Stalin. He pointed out that it was necessary to consider transferring Stalin from the position of [Party] General Secretary because Stalin was excessively rude, did not have a proper attitude toward his comrades, and was capricious and abused his power.

In December 1922, in a letter to the Party Congress, Vladimir Ilyich wrote: “After taking over the position of General Secretary, comrade Stalin accumulated immeasurable power in his hands and I am not certain whether he will be always able to use this power with the required care.”

This letter – a political document of tremendous importance, known in the Party’s history as Lenin’s “Testament” - was distributed among [you] delegates to [this] 20th Party Congress. You have read it and will undoubtedly read it again more than once. You might reflect on Lenin’s plain words, in which expression is given to Vladimir Ilyich’s anxiety concerning the Party, the people, the state, and the future direction of Party policy.

Vladimir Ilyich said:

“Stalin is excessively rude, and this defect, which can be freely tolerated in our midst and in contacts among us Communists, becomes a defect which cannot be tolerated in one holding the position of General Secretary. Because of this, I propose that the comrades consider the method by which Stalin would be removed from this position and by which another man would be selected for it, a man who, above all, would differ from Stalin in only one quality, namely, greater tolerance, greater loyalty, greater kindness and more considerate attitude toward the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc.”

This document of Lenin’s was made known to the delegates at the 13th Party Congress, who discussed the question of transferring Stalin from the position of General Secretary. The delegates declared themselves in favor of retaining Stalin in this post, hoping that he would heed Vladimir Ilyich’s critical remarks and would be able to overcome the defects which caused Lenin serious anxiety.

Comrades! The Party Congress should become acquainted with two new documents, which confirm Stalin’s character as already outlined by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in his “Testament.” These documents are a letter from Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya to [Lev] Kamenev, who was at that time head of the Politbiuro, and a personal letter from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin to Stalin.

I will now read these documents:

“LEV BORISOVICH!

“Because of a short letter which I had written in words dictated to me by Vladimir Ilyich by permission of the doctors, Stalin allowed himself yesterday an unusually rude outburst directed at me.

This is not my first day in the Party. During all these 30 years I have never heard one word of rudeness from any comrade. The Party’s and Ilyich’s business is no less dear to me than to Stalin. I need maximum self-control right now. What one can and what one cannot discuss with Ilyich I know better than any doctor, because I know what makes him nervous and what does not. In any case I know [it] better than Stalin. I am turning to you and to Grigory [Zinoviev] as much closer comrades of V[ladimir] I[lyich]. I beg you to protect me from rude interference with my private life and from vile invectives and threats. I have no doubt what the Control Commission’s unanimous decision [in this matter], with which Stalin sees fit to threaten me, will be. However I have neither strength nor time to waste on this foolish quarrel. And I am a human being and my nerves are strained to the utmost.

“N. KRUPSKAYA”

Nadezhda Konstantinovna wrote this letter on December 23, 1922. After two and a half months, in March 1923, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sent Stalin the following letter:

“TO COMRADE STALIN (COPIES FOR: KAMENEV AND ZINOVIEV):

“Dear comrade Stalin!

“You permitted yourself a rude summons of my wife to the telephone and a rude reprimand of her. Despite the fact that she told you that she agreed to forget what was said, nevertheless Zinoviev and Kamenev heard about it from her. I have no intention to forget so easily that which is being done against me. I need not stress here that I consider as directed against me that which is being done against my wife. I ask you, therefore, that you weigh carefully whether you are agreeable to retracting your words and apologizing, or whether you prefer the severance of relations between us.

“SINCERELY: LENIN, MARCH 5, 1923

(Commotion in the hall.)

Comrades! I will not comment on these documents. They speak eloquently for themselves. Since Stalin could behave in this manner during Lenin’s life, could thus behave toward Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya – whom the Party knows well and values highly as a loyal friend of Lenin and as an active fighter for the cause of the Party since its creation – we can easily imagine how Stalin treated other people. These negative characteristics of his developed steadily and during the last years acquired an absolutely insufferable character.

As later events have proven, Lenin’s anxiety was justified. In the first period after Lenin’s death, Stalin still paid attention to his advice, but later he began to disregard the serious admonitions of Vladimir Ilyich. When we analyze the practice of Stalin in regard to the direction of the Party and of the country, when we pause to consider everything which Stalin perpetrated, we must be convinced that Lenin’s fears were justified. The negative characteristics of Stalin, which, in Lenin’s time, were only incipient, transformed themselves during the last years into a grave abuse of power by Stalin, which caused untold harm to our Party.

We have to consider seriously and analyze correctly this matter in order that we may preclude any possibility of a repetition in any form whatever of what took place during the life of Stalin, who absolutely did not tolerate collegiality in leadership and in work, and who practiced brutal violence, not only toward everything which opposed him, but also toward that which seemed, to his capricious and despotic character, contrary to his concepts.

Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed these concepts or tried to prove his [own] viewpoint and the correctness of his [own] position was doomed to removal from the leadership collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation. This was especially true during the period following the 17th Party Congress, when many prominent Party leaders and rank-and-file Party workers, honest and dedicated to the cause of Communism, fell victim to Stalin’s despotism.

We must affirm that the Party fought a serious fight against the Trotskyites, rightists and bourgeois nationalists, and that it disarmed ideologically all the enemies of Leninism. This ideological fight was carried on successfully, as a result of which the Party became strengthened and tempered. Here Stalin played a positive role.

The Party led a great political-ideological struggle against those in its own ranks who proposed anti-Leninist theses, who represented a political line hostile to the Party and to the cause of socialism. This was a stubborn and a difficult fight but a necessary one, because the political line of both the Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc and of the Bukharinites led actually toward the restoration of capitalism and toward capitulation to the world bourgeoisie. Let us consider for a moment what would have happened if in 1928-1929 the political line of right deviation had prevailed among us, or orientation toward “cotton-dress industrialization,” or toward the kulak, etc. We would not now have a powerful heavy industry; we would not have the kolkhozes; we would find ourselves disarmed and weak in a capitalist encirclement.

It was for this reason that the Party led an inexorable ideological fight, explaining to all [its] members and to the non-Party masses the harm and the danger of the anti-Leninist proposals of the Trotskyite opposition and the rightist opportunists. And this great work of explaining the Party line bore fruit. Both the Trotskyites and the rightist opportunists were politically isolated. An overwhelming Party majority supported the Leninist line, and the Party was able to awaken and organize the working masses to apply the Leninist line and to build socialism.

A fact worth noting is that extreme repressive measures were not used against the Trotskyites, the Zinovievites, the Bukharinites, and others during the course of the furious ideological fight against them. The fight [in the 1920s] was on ideological grounds. But some years later, when socialism in our country was fundamentally constructed, when the exploiting classes were generally liquidated, when Soviet social structure had radically changed, when the social basis for political movements and groups hostile to the Party had violently contracted, when the ideological opponents of the Party were long since defeated politically – then repression directed against them began. It was precisely during this period (1935-1937-1938) that the practice of mass repression through the Government apparatus was born, first against the enemies of Leninism – Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, long since politically defeated by the Party – and subsequently also against many honest Communists, against those Party cadres who had borne the heavy load of the Civil War and the first and most difficult years of industrialization and collectivization, who had fought actively against the Trotskyites and the rightists for the Leninist Party line.

Stalin originated the concept “enemy of the people.” This term automatically made it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven. It made possible the use of the cruelest repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations. The concept “enemy of the people” actually eliminated the possibility of any kind of ideological fight or the making of one’s views known on this or that issue, even [issues] of a practical nature. On the whole, the only proof of guilt actually used, against all norms of current legal science, was the “confession” of the accused himself. As subsequent probing has proven, “confessions” were acquired through physical pressures against the accused. This led to glaring violations of revolutionary legality and to the fact that many entirely innocent individuals – [persons] who in the past had defended the Party line – became victims.

We must assert that, in regard to those persons who in their time had opposed the Party line, there were often no sufficiently serious reasons for their physical annihilation. The formula “enemy of the people” was specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating such individuals.

It is a fact that many persons who were later annihilated as enemies of the Party and people had worked with Lenin during his life. Some of these persons had made errors during Lenin’s life, but, despite this, Lenin benefited by their work; he corrected them and he did everything possible to retain them in the ranks of the Party; he induced them to follow him.

In this connection the delegates to the Party Congress should familiarize themselves with an unpublished note by V. I. Lenin directed to the Central Committee’s Politbiuro in October 1920. Outlining the duties of the [Party] Control Commission, Lenin wrote that the Commission should be transformed into a real “organ of Party and proletarian conscience.”

“As a special duty of the Control Commission there is recommended a deep, individualized relationship with, and sometimes even a type of therapy for, the representatives of the so-called opposition – those who have experienced a psychological crisis because of failure in their Soviet or Party career. An effort should be made to quiet them, to explain the matter to them in a way used among comrades, to find for them (avoiding the method of issuing orders) a task for which they are psychologically fitted. Advice and rules relating to this matter are to be formulated by the Central Committee’s Organizational Bureau, etc.”

Everyone knows how irreconcilable Lenin was with the ideological enemies of Marxism, with those who deviated from the correct Party line. At the same time, however, Lenin, as is evident from the given document, in his practice of directing the Party demanded the most intimate Party contact with people who had shown indecision or temporary non-conformity with the Party line, but whom it was possible to return to the Party path. Lenin advised that such people should be patiently educated without the application of extreme methods.

Lenin’s wisdom in dealing with people was evident in his work with cadres.

An entirely different relationship with people characterized Stalin. Lenin’s traits – patient work with people, stubborn and painstaking education of them, the ability to induce people to follow him without using compulsion, but rather through the ideological influence on them of the whole collective – were entirely foreign to Stalin. He discarded the Leninist method of convincing and educating, he abandoned the method of ideological struggle for that of administrative violence, mass repressions and terror. He acted on an increasingly larger scale and more stubbornly through punitive organs, at the same time often violating all existing norms of morality and of Soviet laws.

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   1941年,被德军俘获的斯大林的儿子

Stalin's son Yakov Dzhugashvili captured by the Germans in 1941. 

He was later killed in a prison camp.

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1911年,沙皇政府警方公布参与抢劫银行运钞马车的通缉嫌犯约瑟夫·斯大林同志

             Arbitrary behavior by one person encouraged and permitted arbitrariness 

in others. Mass arrests and deportations of many thousands of people, execution 

without trial and without normal investigation created conditions of insecurity, 

fear and even desperation.

This, of course, did not contribute toward unity of the Party ranks and of all strata of working people, but, on the contrary, brought about annihilation and the expulsion from the Party of workers who were loyal but inconvenient to Stalin.

Our Party fought for the implementation of Lenin’s plans for the construction of socialism. This was an ideological fight. Had Leninist principles been observed during the course of this fight, had the Party’s devotion to principles been skillfully combined with a keen and solicitous concern for people, had they not been repelled and wasted but rather drawn to our side, we certainly would not have had such a brutal violation of revolutionary legality and many thousands of people would not have fallen victim to the method of terror. Extraordinary methods would then have been resorted to only against those people who had in fact committed criminal acts against the Soviet system.

Let us recall some historical facts.

In the days before the October Revolution, two members of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party – Kamenev and Zinoviev – declared themselves against Lenin’s plan for an armed uprising. In addition, on October 18 they published in the Menshevik newspaper, Novaya Zhizn, a statement declaring that the Bolsheviks were making preparations for an uprising and that they considered it adventuristic. Kamenev and Zinoviev thus disclosed to the enemy the decision of the Central Committee to stage the uprising, and that the uprising had been organized to take place within the very near future.

This was treason against the Party and against the Revolution. In this connection, V. I. Lenin wrote: “Kamenev and Zinoviev revealed the decision of the Central Committee of their Party on the armed uprising to [Mikhail] Rodzyanko and [Alexander] Kerensky.... He put before the Central Committee the question of Zinoviev’s and Kamenev’s expulsion from the Party.

However, after the Great Socialist October Revolution, as is known, Zinoviev and Kamenev were given leading positions. Lenin put them in positions in which they carried out most responsible Party tasks and participated actively in the work of the leading Party and Soviet organs. It is known that Zinoviev and Kamenev committed a number of other serious errors during Lenin’s life. In his “Testament” Lenin warned that “Zinoviev’s and Kamenev’s October episode was of course not an accident.” But Lenin did not pose the question of their arrest and certainly not their shooting.

Or, let us take the example of the Trotskyites. At present, after a sufficiently long historical period, we can speak about the fight with the Trotskyites with complete calm and can analyze this matter with sufficient objectivity. After all, around Trotsky were people whose origin cannot by any means be traced to bourgeois society. Part of them belonged to the Party intelligentsia and a certain part were recruited from among the workers. We can name many individuals who, in their time, joined the Trotskyites; however, these same individuals took an active part in the workers’ movement before the Revolution, during the Socialist October Revolution itself, and also in the consolidation of the victory of this greatest of revolutions. Many of them broke with Trotskyism and returned to Leninist positions. Was it necessary to annihilate such people? We are deeply convinced that, had Lenin lived, such an extreme method would not have been used against any of them.

Such are only a few historical facts. But can it be said that Lenin did not decide to use even the most severe means against enemies of the Revolution when this was actually necessary? No; no one can say this. Vladimir Ilyich demanded uncompromising dealings with the enemies of the Revolution and of the working class and when necessary resorted ruthlessly to such methods. You will recall only V. I. Lenin’s fight with the Socialist Revolutionary organizers of the anti-Soviet uprising, with the counterrevolutionary kulaks in 1918 and with others, when Lenin without hesitation used the most extreme methods against the enemies. Lenin used such methods, however, only against actual class enemies and not against those who blunder, who err, and whom it was possible to lead through ideological influence and even retain in the leadership. Lenin used severe methods only in the most necessary cases, when the exploiting classes were still in existence and were vigorously opposing the Revolution, when the struggle for survival was decidedly assuming the sharpest forms, even including a Civil War.

Stalin, on the other hand, used extreme methods and mass repressions at a time when the Revolution was already victorious, when the Soviet state was strengthened, when the exploiting classes were already liquidated and socialist relations were rooted solidly in all phases of national economy, when our Party was politically consolidated and had strengthened itself both numerically and ideologically.

It is clear that here Stalin showed in a whole series of cases his intolerance, his brutality and his abuse of power. Instead of proving his political correctness and mobilizing the masses, he often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the Party and the Soviet Government. Here we see no wisdom but only a demonstration of the brutal force which had once so alarmed V. I. Lenin.

Lately, especially after the unmasking of the Beria gang, the Central Committee looked into a series of matters fabricated by this gang. This revealed a very ugly picture of brutal willfulness connected with the incorrect behavior of Stalin. As facts prove, Stalin, using his unlimited power, allowed himself many abuses, acting in the name of the Central Committee, not asking for the opinion of the Committee members nor even of the members of the Central Committee’s Politbiuro; often he did not inform them about his personal decisions concerning very important Party and government matters.

Considering the question of the cult of an individual, we must first of all show everyone what harm this caused to the interests of our Party.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin had always stressed the Party’s role and significance in the direction of the socialist government of workers and peasants; he saw in this the chief precondition for a successful building of socialism in our country. Pointing to the great responsibility of the Bolshevik Party, as ruling Party of the Soviet state, Lenin called for the most meticulous observance of all norms of Party life; he called for the realization of the principles of collegiality in the direction of the Party and the state.

Collegiality of leadership flows from the very nature of our Party, a Party built on the principles of democratic centralism. “This means,” said Lenin, “that all Party matters are accomplished by all Party members – directly or through representatives – who, without any exceptions, are subject to the same rules; in addition, all administrative members, all directing collegia, all holders of Party positions are elective, they must account for their activities and are recallable.”

It is known that Lenin himself offered an example of the most careful observance of these principles. There was no matter so important that Lenin himself decided it without asking for advice and approval of the majority of the Central Committee members or of the members of the Central Committee’s Politbiuro. In the most difficult period for our Party and our country, Lenin considered it necessary regularly to convoke Congresses, Party Conferences and Plenary sessions of the Central Committee at which all the most important questions were discussed and where resolutions, carefully worked out by the collective of leaders, were approved.

We can recall, for an example, the year 1918 when the country was threatened by the attack of the imperialistic interventionists. In this situation the 7th Party Congress was convened in order to discuss a vitally important matter which could not be postponed – the matter of peace. In 1919, while the Civil War was raging, the 8th Party Congress convened which adopted a new Party program, decided such important matters as the relationship with the peasant masses, the organization of the Red Army, the leading role of the Party in the work of the soviets, the correction of the social composition of the Party, and other matters. In 1920 the 9th Party Congress was convened which laid down guiding principles pertaining to the Party’s work in the sphere of economic construction. In 1921 the 10th Party Congress accepted Lenin’s New Economic Policy and the historic resolution called “On Party Unity.”

During Lenin’s life, Party congresses were convened regularly; always, when a radical turn in the development of the Party and the country took place, Lenin considered it absolutely necessary that the Party discuss at length all the basic matters pertaining to internal and foreign policy and to questions bearing on the development of Party and government.

It is very characteristic that Lenin addressed to the Party Congress as the highest Party organ his last articles, letters and remarks. During the period between congresses, the Central Committee of the Party, acting as the most authoritative leading collective, meticulously observed the principles of the Party and carried out its policy.

So it was during Lenin’s life. Were our Party’s holy Leninist principles observed after the death of Vladimir Ilyich?

Whereas, during the first few years after Lenin’s death, Party Congresses and Central Committee Plenums took place more or less regularly, later, when Stalin began increasingly to abuse his power, these principles were brutally violated. This was especially evident during the last 15 years of his life. Was it a normal situation when over 13 years elapsed between the 18th and 19th Party Congresses, years during which our Party and our country had experienced so many important events? These events demanded categorically that the Party should have passed resolutions pertaining to the country’s defense during the [Great] Patriotic War and to peacetime construction after the war.

Even after the end of the war a Congress was not convened for over seven years. Central Committee Plenums were hardly ever called. It should be sufficient to mention that during all the years of the Patriotic War not a single Central Committee Plenum took place. It is true that there was an attempt to call a Central Committee Plenum in October 1941, when Central Committee members from the whole country were called to Moscow. They waited two days for the opening of the Plenum, but in vain. Stalin did not even want to meet and talk to the Central Committee members. This fact shows how demoralized Stalin was in the first months of the war and how haughtily and disdainfully he treated the Central Committee members.

In practice, Stalin ignored the norms of Party life and trampled on the Leninist principle of collective Party leadership.

Stalin’s willfulness vis a vis the Party and its Central Committee became fully evident after the 17th Party Congress, which took place in 1934.

Having at its disposal numerous data showing brutal willfulness toward Party cadres, the Central Committee has created a Party commission under the control of the Central Committee’s Presidium. It has been charged with investigating what made possible mass repressions against the majority of the Central Committee members and candidates elected at the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

The commission has become acquainted with a large quantity of materials in the NKVD archives and with other documents. It has established many facts pertaining to the fabrication of cases against Communists, to false accusations, [and] to glaring abuses of socialist legality, which resulted in the death of innocent people. It became apparent that many Party, Soviet and economic activists who in 1937-1938 were branded “enemies” were actually never enemies, spies, wreckers, etc., but were always honest Communists. They were merely stigmatized [as enemies]. Often, no longer able to bear barbaric tortures, they charged themselves (at the order of the investigative judges/falsifiers) with all kinds of grave and unlikely crimes.

The commission has presented to the Central Committee’s Presidium lengthy and documented materials pertaining to mass repressions against the delegates to the 17th Party Congress and against members of the Central Committee elected at that Congress. These materials have been studied by the Presidium..

It was determined that of the 139 members and candidates of the Central Committee who were elected at the 17th Congress, 98 persons, i.e., 70 per cent, were arrested and shot (mostly in 1937-1938). (Indignation in the hall.) What was the composition of the delegates to the 17th Congress? It is known that 80 per cent of the voting participants of the 17th Congress joined the Party during the years of conspiracy before the Revolution and during the Civil War, i.e. meaning before 1921. By social origin the basic mass of the delegates to the Congress were workers (60 per cent of the voting members).

For this reason, it is inconceivable that a Congress so composed could have elected a Central Committee in which a majority [of the members] would prove to be enemies of the Party. The only reasons why 70 per cent of the Central Committee members and candidates elected at the 17th Congress were branded as enemies of the Party and of the people were because honest Communists were slandered, accusations against them were fabricated, and revolutionary legality was gravely undermined.

The same fate met not only Central Committee members but also the majority of the delegates to the 17th Party Congress. Of 1,966 delegates with either voting or advisory rights, 1,108 persons were arrested on charges of anti-revolutionary crimes, i.e., decidedly more than a majority. This very fact shows how absurd, wild and contrary to common sense were the charges of counterrevolutionary crimes made out, as we now see, against a majority of participants at the 17th Party Congress.

(Indignation in the hall.)

We should recall that the 17th Party Congress is known historically as the Congress of Victors. Delegates to the Congress were active participants in the building of our socialist state; many of them suffered and fought for Party interests during the pre-Revolutionary years in the conspiracy and at the civil-war fronts; they fought their enemies valiantly and often nervelessly looked into the face of death.

How, then, can we believe that such people could prove to be “two-faced” and had joined the camps of the enemies of socialism during the era after the political liquidation of Zinovievites, Trotskyites and rightists and after the great accomplishments of socialist construction? This was the result of the abuse of power by Stalin, who began to use mass terror against Party cadres.

What is the reason that mass repressions against activists increased more and more after the 17th Party Congress? It was because at that time Stalin had so elevated himself above the Party and above the nation that he ceased to consider either the Central Committee or the Party.

Stalin still reckoned with the opinion of the collective before the 17th Congress. After the complete political liquidation of the Trotskyites, Zinovievites and Bukharinites, however, when the Party had achieved unity, Stalin to an ever greater degree stopped considering the members of the Party’s Central Committee and even the members of the Politbiuro. Stalin thought that now he could decide all things alone and that all he needed were statisticians. He treated all others in such a way that they could only listen to him and praise him.

After the criminal murder of Sergey M. Kirov, mass repressions and brutal acts of violation of socialist legality began. On the evening of December 1, 1934 on Stalin’s initiative (without the approval of the Politbiuro –which was given two days later, casually), the Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee, [Abel] Yenukidze, signed the following directive:

“1. Investigative agencies are directed to speed up the cases of those accused of the preparation or execution of acts of terror.

“2. Judicial organs are directed not to hold up the execution of death sentences pertaining to crimes of this category in order to consider the possibility of pardon, because the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR does not consider as possible the receiving of petitions of this sort.

“3. The organs of the Commissariat of Internal Affairs [NKVD] are directed to execute the death sentences against criminals of the above-mentioned category immediately after the passage of sentences.”

This directive became the basis for mass acts of abuse against socialist legality. During many of the fabricated court cases, the accused were charged with “the preparation” of terroristic acts; this deprived them of any possibility that their cases might be re-examined, even when they stated before the court that their “confessions” were secured by force, and when, in a convincing manner, they disproved the accusations against them.

It must be asserted that to this day the circumstances surrounding Kirov’s murder hide many things which are inexplicable and mysterious and demand a most careful examination. There are reasons for the suspicion that the killer of Kirov, [Leonid] Nikolayev, was assisted by someone from among the people whose duty it was to protect the person of Kirov.

A month and a half before the killing, Nikolayev was arrested on the grounds of suspicious behavior but he was released and not even searched. It is an unusually suspicious circumstance that when the Chekist assigned to protect Kirov was being brought for an interrogation, on December 2, 1934, he was killed in a car “accident” in which no other occupants of the car were harmed. After the murder of Kirov, top functionaries of the Leningrad NKVD were given very light sentences, but in 1937 they were shot. We can assume that they were shot in order to cover up the traces of the organizers of Kirov’s killing.

(Movement in the hall.)

Mass repressions grew tremendously from the end of 1936 after a telegram from Stalin and [Andrey] Zhdanov, dated from Sochi on September 25, 1936, was addressed to [Lazar] Kaganovich, [Vyacheslav] Molotov and other members of the Politbiuro. The content of the telegram was as follows:

“We deem it absolutely necessary and urgent that comrade [Nikolay] Yezhov be nominated to the post of People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs. [Genrikh] Yagoda definitely has proven himself incapable of unmasking the Trotskyite-Zinovievite bloc. The OGPU is four years behind in this matter. This is noted by all Party workers and by the majority of the representatives of the NKVD.”

Strictly speaking, we should stress that Stalin did not meet with and, therefore, could not know the opinion of Party workers.

This Stalinist formulation that the “NKVD is four years behind” in applying mass repression and that there is a necessity for “catching up” with the neglected work directly pushed the NKVD workers on the path of mass arrests and executions.

We should state that this formulation was also forced on the February-March Plenary session of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1937. The Plenary resolution approved it on the basis of Yezhov’s report, “Lessons flowing from the harmful activity, diversion and espionage of the Japanese-German-Trotskyite agents,” stating:

“The Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) considers that all facts revealed during the investigation into the matter of an anti-Soviet Trotskyite center and of its followers in the provinces show that the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs has fallen behind at least four years in the attempt to unmask these most inexorable enemies of the people.

The mass repressions at this time were made under the slogan of a fight against the Trotskyites. Did the Trotskyites at this time actually constitute such a danger to our Party and to the Soviet state? We should recall that in 1927, on the eve of the 15th Party Congress, only some 4,000 [Party] votes were cast for the Trotskyite-Zinovievite opposition while there were 724,000 for the Party line. During the 10 years which passed between the 15th Party Congress and the February-March Central Committee Plenum, Trotskyism was completely disarmed. Many former Trotskyites changed their former views and worked in the various sectors building socialism. It is clear that in the situation of socialist victory there was no basis for mass terror in the country.

Stalin’s report at the February-March Central Committee Plenum in 1937, “Deficiencies of Party work and methods for the liquidation of the Trotskyites and of other two-facers,” contained an attempt at theoretical justification of the mass terror policy under the pretext that class war must allegedly sharpen as we march forward toward socialism. Stalin asserted that both history and Lenin taught him this.

Actually Lenin taught that the application of revolutionary violence is necessitated by the resistance of the exploiting classes, and this referred to the era when the exploiting classes existed and were powerful. As soon as the nation’s political situation had improved, when in January 1920 the Red Army took Rostov and thus won a most important victory over [General A. I. ] Denikin, Lenin instructed [Felix] Dzerzhinsky to stop mass terror and to abolish the death penalty. Lenin justified this important political move of the Soviet state in the following manner in his report at the session of the All-Union Central Executive Committee on February 2, 1920:

“We were forced to use terror because of the terror practiced by the Entente, when strong world powers threw their hordes against us, not avoiding any type of conduct. We would not have lasted two days had we not answered these attempts of officers and White Guardists in a merciless fashion; this meant the use of terror, but this was forced upon us by the terrorist methods of the Entente.

“But as soon as we attained a decisive victory, even before the end of the war, immediately after taking Rostov, we gave up the use of the death penalty and thus proved that we intend to execute our own program in the manner that we promised. We say that the application of violence flows out of the decision to smother the exploiters, the big landowners and the capitalists; as soon as this was accomplished we gave up the use of all extraordinary methods. We have proved this in practice.”

Stalin deviated from these clear and plain precepts of Lenin. Stalin put the Party and the NKVD up to the use of mass terror when the exploiting classes had been liquidated in our country and when there were no serious reasons for the use of extraordinary mass terror.

This terror was actually directed not at the remnants of the defeated exploiting classes but against the honest workers of the Party and of the Soviet state; against them were made lying, slanderous and absurd accusations concerning “two-facedness,” “espionage,” “sabotage,” preparation of fictitious “plots,” etc.

At the February-March Central Committee Plenum in 1937 many members actually questioned the rightness of the established course regarding mass repressions under the pretext of combating “two-facedness.”

Comrade [Pavel] Postyshev most ably expressed these doubts. He said:

“I have philosophized that the severe years of fighting have passed. Party members who have lost their backbones have broken down or have joined the camp of the enemy; healthy elements have fought for the Party. These were the years of industrialization and collectivization. I never thought it possible that after this severe era had passed Karpov and people like him would find themselves in the camp of the enemy. Karpov was a worker in the Ukrainian Central Committee whom Postyshev knew well.) And now, according to the testimony, it appears that Karpov was recruited in 1934 by the Trotskyites. I personally do not believe that in 1934 an honest Party member who had trod the long road of unrelenting fight against enemies for the Party and for socialism would now be in the camp of the enemies. I do not believe it.... I cannot imagine how it would be possible to travel with the Party during the difficult years and then, in 1934, join the Trotskyites. It is an odd thing....”

(Movement in the hall.)

Using Stalin’s formulation, namely, that the closer we are to socialism the more enemies we will have, and using the resolution of the February-March Central Committee Plenum passed on the basis of Yezhov’s report, the provocateurs who had infiltrated the state-security organs together with conscienceless careerists began to protect with the Party name the mass terror against Party cadres, cadres of the Soviet state, and ordinary Soviet citizens. It should suffice to say that the number of arrests based on charges of counterrevolutionary crimes had grown ten times between 1936 and 1937.

It is known that brutal willfulness was practiced against leading Party workers. The [relevant] Party statute, approved at the 17th Party Congress, was based on Leninist principles expressed at the 10th Party Congress. It stated that, in order to apply an extreme method such as exclusion from the Party against a Central Committee member, against a Central Committee candidate or against a member of the Party Control Commission, “it is necessary to call a Central Committee Plenum and to invite to the Plenum all Central Committee candidate members and all members of the Party Control Commission”; only if two-thirds of the members of such a general assembly of responsible Party leaders found it necessary, only then could a Central Committee member or candidate be expelled.

The majority of those Central Committee’s members and candidates who were elected at the 17th Congress and arrested in 1937-1938 were expelled from the Party illegally through brutal abuse of the Party statute, because the question of their expulsion was never studied at the Central Committee Plenum.

Now, when the cases of some of these so-called “spies” and “saboteurs” were examined, it was found that all their cases were fabricated. The confessions of guilt of many of those arrested and charged with enemy activity were gained with the help of cruel and inhuman tortures.

At the same time, Stalin, as we have been informed by members of the Politbiuro of that time, did not show them the statements of many accused political activists when they retracted their confessions before the military tribunal and asked for an objective examination of their cases. There were many such declarations, and Stalin doubtless knew of them.

The Central Committee considers it absolutely necessary to inform the Congress of many such fabricated “cases” against the members of the Party’s Central Committee elected at the 17th Party Congress.

An example of vile provocation, of odious falsification and of criminal violation of revolutionary legality is the case of the former candidate for the Central Committee Politbiuro, one of the most eminent workers of the Party and of the Soviet Government, comrade [Robert] Eikhe, who had been a Party member since 1905.

(Commotion in the hall.)

Comrade Eikhe was arrested on April 29, 1938 on the basis of slanderous materials, without the sanction of the [State] Prosecutor of the USSR. This was finally received 15 months after the arrest.

The investigation of Eikhe’s case was made in a manner which most brutally violated Soviet legality and was accompanied by willfulness and falsification.

Under torture, Eikhe was forced to sign a protocol of his confession prepared in advance by the investigative judges. In it, he and several other eminent Party workers were accused of anti-Soviet activity.

On October 1, 1939 Eikhe sent his declaration to Stalin in which he categorically denied his guilt and asked for an examination of his case. In the declaration he wrote: “There is no more bitter misery than to sit in the jail of a government for which I have always fought.”

A second declaration of Eikhe has been preserved, which he sent to Stalin on October 27, 1939. In it [Eikhe] cited facts very convincingly and countered the slanderous accusations made against him, arguing that this provocatory accusation was on one hand the work of real Trotskyites whose arrests he had sanctioned as First Secretary of the West Siberian Regional Party Committee and who conspired in order to take revenge on him, and, on the other hand, the result of the base falsification of materials by the investigative judges.

Eikhe wrote in his declaration:

“... On October 25 of this year I was informed that the investigation in my case has been concluded and I was given access to the materials of this investigation. Had I been guilty of only one hundredth of the crimes with which I am charged, I would not have dared to send you this pre-execution declaration. However I have not been guilty of even one of the things with which I am charged and my heart is clean of even the shadow of baseness. I have never in my life told you a word of falsehood, and now, finding both feet in the grave, I am still not lying. My whole case is a typical example of provocation, slander and violation of the elementary basis of revolutionary legality....

“... The confessions which were made part of my file are not only absurd but contain slander toward the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and toward the Council of People’s Commissars. [This is] because correct resolutions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and of the Council of People’s Commissars which were not made on my initiative and [were promulgated] without my participation are presented as hostile acts of counterrevolutionary organizations made at my suggestion.

“I am now alluding to the most disgraceful part of my life and to my really grave guilt against the Party and against you. This is my confession of counterrevolutionary activity.... The case is as follows: Not being able to suffer the tortures to which I was submitted by [Z.] Ushakov and Nikolayev – especially by the former, who utilized the knowledge that my broken ribs have not properly mended and have caused me great pain – I have been forced to accuse myself and others.

“The majority of my confession has been suggested or dictated by Ushakov. The rest is my reconstruction of NKVD materials from Western Siberia for which I assumed all responsibility. If some part of the story which Ushakov fabricated and which I signed did not properly hang together, I was forced to sign another variation. The same thing was done to [Moisey] Rukhimovich, who was at first designated as a member of the reserve net and whose name later was removed without telling me anything about it. The same also was done with the leader of the reserve net, supposedly created by Bukharin in 1935. At first I wrote my [own] name in, and then I was instructed to insert [Valery] Mezhlauk’s. There were other similar incidents.

“... I am asking and begging you that you again examine my case, and this not for the purpose of sparing me but in order to unmask the vile provocation which, like a snake, wound itself around many persons in a great degree due to my meanness and criminal slander. I have never betrayed you or the Party. I know that I perish because of vile and mean work of enemies of the Party and of the people, who have fabricated the provocation against me.”

It would appear that such an important declaration was worth an examination by the Central Committee. This, however, was not done. The declaration was transmitted to Beria while the terrible maltreatment of the Politbiuro candidate, comrade Eikhe, continued.

On February 2, 1940, Eikhe was brought before the court. Here he did not confess any guilt and said as follows:

“In all the so-called confessions of mine there is not one letter written by me with the exception of my signatures under the protocols, which were forced from me. I have made my confession under pressure from the investigative judge, who from the time of my arrest tormented me. After that I began to write all this nonsense.... The most important thing for me is to tell the court, the Party and Stalin that I am not guilty. I have never been guilty of any conspiracy. I will die believing in the truth of Party policy as I have believed in it during my whole life.”

On February 4, Eikhe was shot.

(Indignation in the hall.)

It has been definitely established now that Eikhe’s case was fabricated. He has been rehabilitated posthumously.

Comrade [Yan] Rudzutak, a candidate-member of the Politbiuro, a member of the Party since 1905 who spent 10 years in a Tsarist hard-labor camp, completely retracted in court the confession forced from him. The protocol of the session of the Collegium of the Supreme Military Court contains the following statement by Rudzutak:

“... The only plea which [the defendant] places before the court is that the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) be informed that there is in the NKVD an as yet not liquidated center which is craftily manufacturing cases, which forces innocent persons to confess. There is no opportunity to prove one’s non-participation in crimes to which the confessions of various persons testify. The investigative methods are such that they force people to lie and to slander entirely innocent persons in addition to those who already stand accused. [The defendant] asks the Court that he be allowed to inform the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) about all this in writing. He assures the Court that he personally had never any evil designs in regard to the policy of our Party because he has always agreed with Party policy concerning all spheres of economic and cultural activity.”

This declaration of Rudzutak was ignored, despite the fact that Rudzutak was in his time the head of the Central Control Commission– which had been called into being, in accordance with Lenin’s conception, for the purpose of fighting for Party unity. In this manner fell the head of this highly authoritative Party organ, a victim of brutal willfulness. He was not even called before the Politbiuro because Stalin did not want to talk to him. Sentence was pronounced on him in 20 minutes and he was shot.

(Indignation in the hall.)

After careful examination of the case in 1955, it was established that the accusation against Rudzutak was false and that it was based on slanderous materials. Rudzutak has been rehabilitated posthumously.

The way in which the former NKVD workers manufactured various fictitious “anti-Soviet centers” and “blocs” with the help of provocatory methods is seen from the confession of comrade Rozenblum, a Party member since 1906, who was arrested in 1937 by the Leningrad NKVD.

During the examination in 1955 of the Komarov case, Rozenblum revealed the following fact: When Rozenblum was arrested in 1937, he was subjected to terrible torture during which he was ordered to confess false information concerning himself and other persons. He was then brought to the office of [Leonid] Zakovsky, who offered him freedom on condition that he make before the court a false confession fabricated in 1937 by the NKVD concerning “sabotage, espionage and diversion in a terroristic center in Leningrad.” (Movement in the hall.) With unbelievable cynicism, Zakovsky told about the vile “mechanism” for the crafty creation of fabricated “anti-Soviet plots.”

“In order to illustrate it to me,” stated Rozenblum, “Zakovsky gave me several possible variants of the organization of this center and of its branches. After he detailed the organization to me, Zakovsky told me that the NKVD would prepare the case of this center, remarking that the trial would be public. Before the court were to be brought 4 or 5 members of this center: [Mikhail] Chudov, [Fyodor] Ugarov, [Pyotr] Smorodin, [Boris] Pozern, Chudov’s wife [Liudmilla] Shaposhnikova and others together with 2 or 3 members from the branches of this center....

“... The case of the Leningrad center has to be built solidly, and for this reason witnesses are needed. Social origin (of course, in the past) and the Party standing of the witness will play more than a small role. “’You, yourself,’ said Zakovsky, ‘will not need to invent anything. The NKVD will prepare for you a ready outline for every branch of the center. You will have to study it carefully, and remember well all questions the Court might ask and their answers. This case will be ready in four or five months, perhaps in half a year. During all this time you will be preparing yourself so that you will not compromise the investigation and yourself. Your future will depend on how the trial goes and on its results. If you begin to lie and to testify falsely, blame yourself. If you manage to endure it, you will save your head and we will feed and clothe you at the Government’s cost until your death.’”

This is the kind of vile thing practiced then.

(Movement in the hall.)

Even more widely was the falsification of cases practiced in the provinces. The NKVD headquarters of the Sverdlov Province “discovered” a so-called “Ural uprising staff” – an organ of the bloc of rightists, Trotskyites, Socialist Revolutionaries, and church leaders – whose chief supposedly was the Secretary of the Sverdlov Provincial Party Committee and member of the Central Committee, All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), [Ivan] Kabakov, who had been a Party member since 1914. Investigative materials of that time show that in almost all regions, provinces and republics there supposedly existed “rightist Trotskyite, espionage-terror and diversionary-sabotage organizations and centers” and that the heads of such organizations as a rule – for no known reason – were First Secretaries of provincial or republican Communist Party committees or Central Committees.

Many thousands of honest and innocent Communists have died as a result of this monstrous falsification of such “cases,” as a result of the fact that all kinds of slanderous “confessions” were accepted, and as a result of the practice of forcing accusations against oneself and others. In the same manner were fabricated the “cases” against eminent Party and state workers – [Stanislav] Kosior, [Vlas] Chubar, [Pavel] Postyshev, [Alexander] Kosarev, and others.

In those years repressions on a mass scale were applied which were based on nothing tangible and which resulted in heavy cadre losses to the Party.

The vicious practice was condoned of having the NKVD prepare lists of persons whose cases were under the jurisdiction of the Military Collegium and whose sentences were prepared in advance. Yezhov would send these [execution] lists to Stalin personally for his approval of the proposed punishment. In 1937-1938, 383 such lists containing the names of many thousands of Party, Soviet, Komsomol, Army, and economic workers were sent to Stalin. He approved these lists.

A large part of these cases are being reviewed now. A great many are being voided because they were baseless and falsified. Suffice it to say that from 1954 to the present time the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court has rehabilitated 7,679 persons, many of whom have been rehabilitated posthumously.

Mass arrests of Party, Soviet, economic and military workers caused tremendous harm to our country and to the cause of socialist advancement.

Mass repressions had a negative influence on the moral-political condition of the Party, created a situation of uncertainty, contributed to the spreading of unhealthy suspicion, and sowed distrust among Communists. All sorts of slanderers and careerists were active.

Resolutions of the January, 1938 Central Committee Plenum brought some measure of improvement to Party organizations. However, widespread repression also existed in 1938.

Only because our Party has at its disposal such great moral-political strength was it possible for it to survive the difficult events in 1937-1938 and to educate new cadres. There is, however, no doubt that our march forward toward socialism and toward the preparation of the country’s defense would have been much more successful were it not for the tremendous loss in the cadres suffered as a result of the baseless and false mass repressions in 1937-1938.

We are accusing Yezhov justly for the degenerate practices of 1937. But we have to answer these questions: Could Yezhov have arrested Kosior, for instance, without Stalin’s knowledge? Was there an exchange of opinions or a Politbiuro decision concerning this?

No, there was not, as there was none regarding other cases of this type. Could Yezhov have decided such important matters as the fate of such eminent Party figures?

No, it would be a display of naiveté to consider this the work of Yezhov alone. It is clear that these matters were decided by Stalin, and that without his orders and his sanction Yezhov could not have done this.

We have examined these cases and have rehabilitated Kosior, Rudzutak, Postyshev, Kosarev and others. For what causes were they arrested and sentenced? Our review of evidence shows that there was no reason for this. They, like many others, were arrested without prosecutorial knowledge.

In such a situation, there is no need for any sanction, for what sort of a sanction could there be when Stalin decided everything? He was the chief prosecutor in these cases. Stalin not only agreed to arrest orders but issued them on his own initiative. We must say this so that the delegates to the Congress can clearly undertake and themselves assess this and draw the proper conclusions.

Facts prove that many abuses were made on Stalin’s orders without reckoning with any norms of Party and Soviet legality. Stalin was a very distrustful man, sickly suspicious. We know this from our work with him. He could look at a man and say: “Why are your eyes so shifty today?” or “Why are you turning so much today and avoiding to look me directly in the eyes?” The sickly suspicion created in him a general distrust even toward eminent Party workers whom he had known for years. Everywhere and in everything he saw “enemies,” “two-facers” and “spies.” Possessing unlimited power, he indulged in great willfulness and stifled people morally as well as physically. A situation was created where one could not express one’s own volition.

When Stalin said that one or another should be arrested, it was necessary to accept on faith that he was an “enemy of the people.” Meanwhile, Beria’s gang, which ran the organs of state security, outdid itself in proving the guilt of the arrested and the truth of materials which it falsified. And what proofs were offered? The confessions of the arrested, and the investigative judges accepted these “confessions.” And how is it possible that a person confesses to crimes which he has not committed? Only in one way –because of the application of physical methods of pressuring him, tortures, bringing him to a state of unconsciousness, deprivation of his judgment, taking away of his human dignity. In this manner were “confessions” acquired.

The wave of mass arrests began to recede in 1939. When the leaders of territorial Party organizations began to accuse NKVD workers of using methods of physical pressure on the arrested, Stalin dispatched a coded telegram on January 20, 1939 to the committee secretaries of provinces and regions, to the central committees of republican Communist parties, to the [republican] People’s Commissars of Internal Affairs and to the heads of NKVD organizations. This telegram stated:

“The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) explains that the application of methods of physical pressure in NKVD practice is permissible from 1937 on in accordance with permission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) ... It is known that all bourgeois intelligence services use methods of physical influence against representatives of the socialist proletariat and that they use them in their most scandalous forms.

“The question arises as to why the socialist intelligence service should be more humanitarian against the mad agents of the bourgeoisie, against the deadly enemies of the working class and of kolkhoz workers. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) considers that physical pressure should still be used obligatorily, as an exception applicable to known and obstinate enemies of the people, as a method both justifiable and appropriate.”

Thus, Stalin had sanctioned in the name of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) the most brutal violation of socialist legality, torture and oppression, which led as we have seen to the slandering and to the self-accusation of innocent people.

Not long ago – only several days before the present Congress – we called to the Central Committee Presidium session and interrogated the investigative judge Rodos, who in his time investigated and interrogated Kosior, Chubar and Kosarev. He is a vile person, with the brain of a bird, and completely degenerate morally. It was this man who was deciding the fate of prominent Party workers. He also was making judgments concerning the politics in these matters, because, having established their “crime,” he thereby provided materials from which important political implications could be drawn.

The question arises whether a man with such an intellect could–by himelf–have conducted his investigations in a manner proving the guilt of people such as Kosior and others. No, he could not have done it without proper directives. At the Central Committee Presidium session he told us: “I was told that Kosior and Chubar were people’s enemies and for this reason I, as an investigative judge, had to make them confess that they were enemies.”

(Indignation in the hall.)

He would do this only through long tortures, which he did, receiving detailed instructions from Beria. We must say that at the Central Committee Presidium session he cynically declared: “I thought that I was executing the orders of the Party.” In this manner, Stalin’s orders concerning the use of methods of physical pressure against the arrested were carried out in practice.

These and many other facts show that all norms of correct Party solution of problems were [in]validated and that everything was dependent upon the willfulness of one man.

The power accumulated in the hands of one person, Stalin, led to serious consequences during the Great Patriotic War.

When we look at many of our novels, films and historical-scientific studies, the role of Stalin in the Patriotic War appears to be entirely improbable. Stalin had foreseen everything. The Soviet Army, on the basis of a strategic plan prepared by Stalin long before, used the tactics of so-called “active defense,” i.e., tactics which, as we know, allowed the Germans to come up to Moscow and Stalingrad. Using such tactics, the Soviet Army, supposedly thanks only to Stalin’s genius, turned to the offensive and subdued the enemy. The epic victory gained through the armed might of the land of the Soviets, through our heroic people, is ascribed in this type of novel, film and “scientific study” as being completely due to the strategic genius of Stalin.

We have to analyze this matter carefully because it has a tremendous significance not only from the historical, but especially from the political, educational and practical points of view. What are the facts of this matter?

Before the war, our press and all our political-educational work was characterized by its bragging tone: When an enemy violates the holy Soviet soil, then for every blow of the enemy we will answer with three, and we will battle the enemy on his soil and we will win without much harm to ourselves. But these positive statements were not based in all areas on concrete facts, which would actually guarantee the immunity of our borders.

During the war and after the war, Stalin advanced the thesis that the tragedy our nation experienced in the first part of the war was the result of an “unexpected” attack by the Germans against the Soviet Union. But, comrades, this is completely untrue. As soon as Hitler came to power in Germany he assigned to himself the task of liquidating Communism. The fascists were saying this openly. They did not hide their plans.

In order to attain this aggressive end, all sorts of pacts and blocs were created, such as the famous Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis. Many facts from the prewar period clearly showed that Hitler was going all out to begin a war against the Soviet state, and that he had concentrated large armies, together with armored units, near the Soviet borders.

Documents which have now been published show that [as early as] April 3, 1941 Churchill, through his ambassador to the USSR, [Sir Stafford] Cripps, personally warned Stalin that the Germans had begun regrouping their armed units with the intent of attacking the Soviet Union.

It is self-evident that Churchill did not do this at all because of his friendly feeling toward the Soviet nation. He had in this his own imperialistic goals – to bring Germany and the USSR into a bloody war and thereby to strengthen the position of the British Empire.

All the same, Churchill affirmed in his writings that he sought to “warn Stalin and call his attention to the danger which threatened him.” Churchill stressed this repeatedly in his dispatches of April 18 and on the following days. However, Stalin took no heed of these warnings. What is more, Stalin ordered that no credence be given to information of this sort, so as not to provoke the initiation of military operations.

We must assert that information of this sort concerning the threat of German armed invasion of Soviet territory was coming in also from our own military and diplomatic sources. However, because the leadership was conditioned against such information, such data was dispatched with fear and assessed with reservation. Thus, for instance, information sent from Berlin on May 6, 1941 by the Soviet military (sic) attaché, Captain (sic) Vorontsov, stated: “Soviet citizen Bozer ... communicated to the Deputy naval attaché that, according to a statement of a certain German officer from Hitler’s headquarters, Germany is preparing to invade the USSR on May 14 through Finland, the Baltic countries and Latvia. At the same time Moscow and Leningrad will be heavily raided and paratroopers landed in border cities....”

In his report of May 22, 1941, the Deputy Military Attaché in Berlin, Khlopov, communicated that “...the attack of the German Army is reportedly scheduled for June 15, but it is possible that it may begin in the first days of June...”

A cable from our London Embassy dated June 18, 1941 stated: “As of now Cripps is deeply convinced of the inevitability of armed conflict between Germany and the USSR, which will begin not later than the middle of June. According to Cripps, the Germans have presently concentrated 147 divisions (including air force and service units) along the Soviet borders....”

Despite these particularly grave warnings, the necessary steps were not taken to prepare the country properly for defense and to prevent it from being caught unawares.

Did we have time and the capabilities for such preparations? Yes, we had the time and the capability. Our industry was already so developed that it was capable of supplying fully the Soviet Army with everything that it needed. This is proven by the fact that, although during the war we lost almost half of our industry and important industrial and food-production areas as the result of enemy occupation of the Ukraine, Northern Caucasus and other western parts of the country, the Soviet nation was still able to organize the production of military equipment in the eastern parts of the country, to install there equipment taken from the western industrial areas, and to supply our armed forces with everything necessary to destroy the enemy.

Had our industry been mobilized properly and in time to supply the Army with the necessary materiel, our wartime losses would have been decidedly smaller. However such mobilization had not been started in time. And already in the first days of the war it became evident that our Army was badly armed. We did not have enough artillery, tanks and planes to throw the enemy back.

Soviet science and technology produced excellent models of tanks and artillery pieces before the war. But mass production of all this was not organized. As a matter of fact, we started to modernize our military equipment only on the eve of the war. As a result, when the enemy invaded Soviet territory we did not have sufficient quantities either of old machinery which was no longer used for armament production or of new machinery which we had planned to introduce into armament production.

The situation with anti-aircraft artillery was especially bad. We did not organize the production of anti-tank ammunition. Many fortified regions proved to be indefensible as soon as they were attacked, because their old arms had been withdrawn and new ones were not yet available there.

This pertained, alas, not only to tanks, artillery and planes. At the outbreak of the war we did not even have sufficient numbers of rifles to arm the mobilized manpower. I recall that in those days I telephoned from Kiev to comrade [Georgy] Malenkov and told him, “People have volunteered for the new Army [units] and are demanding weapons. You must send us arms.”

Malenkov answered me, “We cannot send you arms. We are sending all our rifles to Leningrad and you have to arm yourselves.”

(Movement in the hall.)

Such was the armament situation.

In this connection we cannot forget, for instance, the following fact: Shortly before the invasion of the Soviet Union by Hitler’s army, [Colonel-General M. P.] Kirponos, who was chief of the Kiev Special Military District (he was later killed at the front), wrote to Stalin that German armies were at the Bug River, were preparing for an attack and in the very near future would probably start their offensive. In this connection, Kirponos proposed that a strong defense be organized, that 300,000 people be evacuated from the border areas and that several strong points be organized there: anti-tank ditches, trenches for the soldiers, etc.

Moscow answered this proposition with the assertions that this would be a provocation, that no preparatory defensive work should be undertaken at the borders, and that the Germans were not to be given any pretext for the initiation of military action against us. Thus our borders were insufficiently prepared to repel the enemy.

When the fascist armies had actually invaded Soviet territory and military operations began, Moscow issued an order that German fire was not to be returned. Why? It was because Stalin, despite the self-evident facts, thought that the war had not yet started, that this was only a provocative action on the part of several undisciplined sections of the German Army, and that our reaction might serve as a reason for the Germans to begin the war.

The following fact is also known: On the eve of the invasion of Soviet territory by Hitler’s army, a certain German citizen crossed our border and stated that the German armies had received orders to start [their] offensive against the Soviet Union on the night of June 22 at 3 o’clock. Stalin was informed about this immediately, but even this warning was ignored.

As you see, everything was ignored: warnings of certain Army commanders, declarations of deserters from the enemy army, and even the open hostility of the enemy. Is this an example of the alertness of the chief of the Party and of the state at this particularly significant historical moment?

And what were the results of this carefree attitude, this disregard of clear facts? The result was that already in the first hours and days the enemy had destroyed in our border regions a large part of our Air Force, our artillery and other military equipment. [Stalin] annihilated large numbers of our military cadres and disorganized our military leadership. Consequently we could not prevent the enemy from marching deep into the country.

Very grievous consequences, especially with regard to the beginning of the war, followed Stalin’s annihilation of many military commanders and political workers during 1937-1941 because of his suspiciousness and through slanderous accusations. During these years repressions were instituted against certain parts of our military cadres beginning literally at the company- and battalion-commander levels and extending to higher military centers. During this time, the cadre of leaders who had gained military experience in Spain and in the Far East was almost completely liquidated.

The policy of large-scale repression against military cadres led also to undermined military discipline, because for several years officers of all ranks and even soldiers in Party and Komsomol cells were taught to “unmask” their superiors as hidden enemies.

(Movement in the hall.)

It is natural that this caused a negative influence on the state of military discipline in the initial stage of the war.

And, as you know, we had before the war excellent military cadres which were unquestionably loyal to the Party and to the Fatherland. Suffice it to say that those of them who managed to survive, despite severe tortures to which they were subjected in the prisons, have from the first war days shown themselves real patriots and heroically fought for the glory of the Fatherland. I have here in mind such [generals] as: [Konstantin] Rokossovsky (who, as you know, had been jailed); [Alexander] Gorbatov; [Kiril] Meretskov (who is a delegate at the present Congress); [K. P.] Podlas (he was an excellent commander who perished at the front); and many, many others. However, many such commanders perished in the camps and the jails and the Army saw them no more.

All this brought about a situation at the beginning of the war that was a great threat to our Fatherland.

It would be wrong to forget that, after [our] severe initial disaster[s] and defeat[s] at the front, Stalin thought that it was the end. In one of his [declarations] in those days he said: “Lenin left us a great legacy and we’ve lost it forever.”

After this Stalin for a long time actually did not direct military operations and ceased to do anything whatsoever. He returned to active leadership only when a Politbiuro delegation visited him and told him that steps needed to be taken immediately so as to improve the situation at the front.

Therefore, the threatening danger which hung over our Fatherland in the initial period of the war was largely due to Stalin’s very own faulty methods of directing the nation and the Party.

However, we speak not only about the moment when the war began, which led to our Army’s serious disorganization and brought us severe losses. Even after the war began, the nervousness and hysteria which Stalin demonstrated while interfering with actual military operations caused our Army serious damage.

Stalin was very far from understanding the real situation that was developing at the front. This was natural because, during the whole Patriotic War, he never visited any section of the front or any liberated city except for one short ride on the Mozhaisk highway during a stabilized situation at the front. To this incident were dedicated many literary works full of fantasies of all sorts and so many paintings. Simultaneously, Stalin was interfering with operations and issuing orders which did not take into consideration the real situation at a given section of the front and which could not help but result in huge personnel losses.

I will allow myself in this connection to bring out one characteristic fact which illustrates how Stalin directed operations at the fronts. Present at this Congress is Marshal [Ivan] Bagramyan, who was once the head of operations in the Southwestern Front Headquarters and who can corroborate what I will tell you.

When an exceptionally serious situation for our Army developed in the Kharkov region in 1942, we correctly decided to drop an operation whose objective was to encircle [the city]. The real situation at that time would have threatened our Army with fatal consequences if this operation were continued.

We communicated this to Stalin, stating that the situation demanded changes in [our] operational plans so that the enemy would be prevented from liquidating a sizable concentration of our Army.

Contrary to common sense, Stalin rejected our suggestion. He issued the order to continue the encirclement of Kharkov, despite the fact that at this time many [of our own] Army concentrations actually were threatened with encirclement and liquidation.

I telephoned to [Marshal Alexander] Vasilevsky and begged him: “Alexander Mikhailovich, take a map” – Vasilevsky is present here – “and show comrade Stalin the situation that has developed.” We should note that Stalin planned operations on a globe.

(Animation in the hall.)

Yes, comrades, he used to take a globe and trace the front line on it. I said to comrade Vasilevsky: “Show him the situation on a map. In the present situation we cannot continue the operation which was planned. The old decision must be changed for the good of the cause.”

Vasilevsky replied, saying that Stalin had already studied this problem. He said that he, Vasilevsky, would not see Stalin further concerning this matter, because the latter didn’t want to hear any arguments on the subject of this operation.

After my talk with Vasilevsky, I telephoned to Stalin at his dacha. But Stalin did not answer the phone and Malenkov was at the receiver. I told comrade Malenkov that I was calling from the front and that I wanted to speak personally to Stalin. Stalin informed me through Malenkov that I should speak with Malenkov. I stated for the second time that I wished to inform Stalin personally about the grave situation which had arisen for us at the front. But Stalin did not consider it convenient to pick up the phone and again stated that I should speak to him through Malenkov, although he was only a few steps from the telephone.

After “listening” in this manner to our plea, Stalin said: “Let everything remain as it is!”

And what was the result of this? The worst we had expected. The Germans surrounded our Army concentrations and as a result [the Kharkov counterattack] lost hundreds of thousands of our soldiers. This is Stalin’s military “genius.” This is what it cost us.

(Movement in the hall.)

On one occasion after the war, during a meeting [between] Stalin [and] members of the Politbiuro, Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan mentioned that Khrushchev must have been right when he telephoned concerning the Kharkov operation and that it was unfortunate that his suggestion had not been accepted.

You should have seen Stalin’s fury! How could it be admitted that he, Stalin, had not been right! He is after all a “genius,” and a genius cannot help but be right! Everyone can err, but Stalin considered that he never erred, that he was always right. He never acknowledged to anyone that he made any mistake, large or small, despite the fact that he made more than a few in matters of theory and in his practical activity. After the Party Congress we shall probably have to re-evaluate many [of our] wartime military operations and present them in their true light.

The tactics on which Stalin insisted – without knowing the basics of conducting battle operations – cost much blood until we succeeded in stopping the opponent and going over to the offensive.

The military knows that as late as the end of 1941, instead of great operational maneuvers flanking [our] opponent and penetrating behind his back, Stalin was demanding incessant frontal [counter-]attacks and the [re-]capture of one village after another.

Because of this, we paid with great losses – until our generals, upon whose shoulders the whole weight of conducting the war rested, succeeded in altering the situation and shifting to flexible-maneuver operations. [This] immediately brought serious changes at the front [that were] favorable to us.

All the more shameful was the fact that after our great victory over the enemy, which cost us so dearly, Stalin began to downgrade many of the commanders who had contributed so much to it. [This was] because Stalin ruled out any chance that services rendered at the front might be credited to anyone but himself.

Stalin was very much interested in assessments of comrade [Grigory] Zhukov as a military leader. He asked me often for my opinion of Zhukov. I told him then, “I have known Zhukov for a long time. He is a good general and a good military leader.”

After the war Stalin began to tell all kinds of nonsense about Zhukov. Among it [was] the following: “You praised Zhukov, but he does not deserve it. They say that before each operation at the front Zhukov used to behave as follows: He used to take a handful of earth, smell it and say, ‘We can begin the attack,’ or its opposite, ‘The planned operation cannot be carried out.’” I stated at the time, “Comrade Stalin, I do not know who invented this, but it is not true.”

It is possible that Stalin himself invented these things for the purpose of minimizing the role and military talents of Marshal Zhukov.

In this connection, Stalin very energetically popularized himself as a great leader. In various ways he tried to inculcate the notion that the victories gained by the Soviet nation during the Great Patriotic War were all due to the courage, daring, and genius of Stalin and of no one else. Just like [a] Kuzma Kryuchkov, he put one dress on seven people at the same time.

(Animation in the hall.)

In the same vein, let us take for instance our historical and military films and some [of our] literary creations. They make us feel sick. Their true objective is propagating the theme of praising Stalin as a military genius. Let us recall the film, The Fall of Berlin. Here only Stalin acts. He issues orders in a hall in which there are many empty Chairs. Only only one man approaches him to report something to him – it is [Alexander] Poskrebyshev, his loyal shield-bearer.

(Laughter in the hall.)

And where is the military command? Where is the Politburo? Where is the Government? What are they doing, and with what are they engaged? There is nothing about them in the film. Stalin acts for everybody, he does not reckon with anyone. He asks no one for advice. Everything is shown to the people in this false light. Why? To surround Stalin with glory– contrary to the facts and contrary to historical truth.

The question arises: Where is the military, on whose shoulders rested the burden of the war? It is not in the film. With Stalin’s inclusion, there was no room left for it.

Not Stalin, but the Party as a whole, the Soviet Government, our heroic Army, its talented leaders and brave soldiers, the whole Soviet nation – these are the ones who assured victory in the Great Patriotic War.

(Tempestuous and prolonged applause.)

Central Committee members, Ministers, our economic leaders, the leaders of Soviet culture, directors of territorial-party and Soviet organizations, engineers, and technicians – every one of them in his own place of work generously gave of his strength and knowledge toward ensuring victory over the enemy.

Exceptional heroism was shown by our hard core – surrounded by glory are our whole working class, our kolkhoz peasantry, the Soviet intelligentsia, who under the leadership of Party organizations overcame untold hardships and bearing the hardships of war, and devoted all their strength to the cause of the Fatherland’s defense.

Our Soviet women accomplished great and brave deeds during the war. They bore on their backs the heavy load of production work in the factories, on the kolkhozes, and in various economic and cultural sectors. Many women participated directly in the Great Patriotic War at the front. Our brave youth contributed immeasurably, both at the front and at home, to the defense of the Soviet Fatherland and to the annihilation of the enemy.

The services of Soviet soldiers, of our commanders and political workers of all ranks are immortal. After the loss of a considerable part of the Army in the initial war months, they did not lose their heads and were able to reorganize during the course of combat. Over the course of the war they created and toughened a strong, heroic Army. They not only withstood [our] strong and cunning enemy’s pressure but smashed him.

The magnificent, heroic deeds of hundreds of millions of people of the East and of the West during the fight against the threat of fascist subjugation which loomed before us will live for centuries, [indeed] for millennia in the memory of thankful humanity.

(Thunderous applause.)

The main roles and the main credit for the victorious ending of the war belong to our Communist Party, to the armed forces of the Soviet Union, and to the tens of millions of Soviet people uplifted by the Party.

(Thunderous and prolonged applause.)

Comrades, let us reach for some other facts. The Soviet Union justly is considered a model multinational state because we have assured in practice the equality and friendship of all [of the] peoples living in our great Fatherland.

All the more monstrous are those acts whose initiator was Stalin and which were rude violations of the basic Leninist principles [behind our] Soviet state’s nationalities policies. We refer to the mass deportations of entire nations from their places of origin, together with all Communists and Komsomols without any exception. This deportation was not dictated by any military considerations.

Thus, at the end of 1943, when there already had been a permanent change of fortune at the front in favor of the Soviet Union, a decision concerning the deportation of all the Karachai from the lands on which they lived was taken and executed.

In the same period, at the end of December, 1943, the same lot befell the [Kalmyks] of the Kalmyk Autonomous Republic. In March, 1944, all the Chechens and Ingushi were deported and the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic was liquidated. In April, 1944, all Balkars were deported from the territory of the Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Republic to faraway places and their Republic itself was renamed the Autonomous Kabardian Republic.

Ukrainians avoided meeting this fate only because there were too many of them and there was no place to which to deport them. Otherwise, [Stalin] would have deported them also.

(Laughter and animation in the hall.)

No Marxist-Leninist, no man of common sense can grasp how it is possible to make whole nations responsible for inimical activity, including women, children, old people, Communists and Komsomols, to use mass repression against them, and to expose them to misery and suffering for the hostile acts of individual persons or groups of persons.

After the conclusion of the Patriotic War, the Soviet nation proudly stressed the magnificent victories gained through [our] great sacrifices and tremendous efforts. The country experienced a period of political enthusiasm. The Party came out of the war even more united. Its cadres were tempered and hardened by the fire of the war. Under such conditions nobody could have even thought of the possibility of some plot in the Party.

And it was precisely at this time that the so-called “Leningrad affair” was born. As we have now proven, this case was fabricated. Those who innocently lost their lives included: comrades [Nikolay] Voznesensky, [Aleksey] Kuznetsov, [Mikhail] Rodionov, [Pyotr] Popkov, and others.

As is known, Voznesensky and Kuznetsov were talented and eminent leaders. Once they stood very close to Stalin. It is sufficient to mention that Stalin made Voznesensky First Deputy to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Kuznetsov was elected Secretary of the Central Committee. The very fact that Stalin entrusted Kuznetsov with the supervision of the state-security organs shows the trust which he enjoyed.

How did it happen that these persons were branded as enemies of the people and liquidated?

Facts prove that the “Leningrad affair” is also the result of willfulness which Stalin exercised against Party cadres. Had a normal situation existed in the Party’s Central Committee and in the Central Committee Politbiuro, affairs of this nature would have been examined there in accordance with Party practice, and all pertinent facts assessed; as a result, such an affair as well as others would not have happened.

We must state that, after the war, the situation became even more complicated. Stalin became even more capricious, irritable and brutal. In particular, his suspicion grew. His persecution mania reached unbelievable dimensions. Many workers became enemies before his very eyes. After the war, Stalin separated himself from the collective even more. Everything was decided by him alone without any consideration for anyone or anything.

This unbelievable suspicion was cleverly taken advantage of by the abject provocateur and vile enemy, Beria, who murdered thousands of Communists and loyal Soviet people. The elevation of Voznesensky and Kuznetsov alarmed Beria. As we have now proven, it had been precisely Beria who had “suggested” to Stalin the fabrication by him and by his confidants of materials in the form of declarations and anonymous letters, and in the form of various rumors and talks.

The Party’s Central Committee has examined this so-called “Leningrad affair”; persons who innocently suffered are now rehabilitated and honor has been restored to the glorious Leningrad Party organization. [V. S.] Abakumov and others who had fabricated this affair were brought before a court; their trial took place in Leningrad and they received what they deserved.

The question arises: Why is it that we see the truth of this affair only now, and why did we not do something earlier, during Stalin’s life, in order to prevent the loss of innocent lives? It was because Stalin personally supervised the “Leningrad affair,” and the majority of the Politbiuro members did not, at that time, know all of the circumstances in these matters and could not therefore intervene.

When Stalin received certain material from Beria and Abakumov, without examining these slanderous materials he ordered an investigation of the “affair” of Voznesensky and Kuznetsov. With this, their fate was sealed.

Similarly instructive is the case of the Mingrelian nationalist organization which supposedly existed in Georgia. As is known, resolutions by the Central Committee, Communist Party of the Soviet Union, were made concerning this case in November 1951 and in March 1952. These resolutions were made without prior discussion with the Politbiuro. Stalin had personally dictated them. They made serious accusations against many loyal Communists. On the basis of falsified documents, it was proven that there existed in Georgia a supposedly nationalistic organization whose objective was the liquidation of the Soviet power in that republic with the help of imperialist powers.

In this connection, a number of responsible Party and Soviet workers were arrested in Georgia. As was later proven, this was a slander directed against the Georgian Party organization.

We know that there have been at times manifestations of local bourgeois nationalism in Georgia as in several other republics. The question arises: Could it be possible that, in the period during which the resolutions referred to above were made, nationalist tendencies grew so much that there was a danger of Georgia’s leaving the Soviet Union and joining Turkey?

(Animation in the hall, laughter).

This is, of course, nonsense. It is impossible to imagine how such assumptions could enter anyone’s mind. Everyone knows how Georgia has developed economically and culturally under Soviet rule. Industrial production in the Georgian Republic is 27 times greater than it was before the Revolution. Many new industries have arisen in Georgia which did not exist there before the Revolution: iron smelting, an oil industry, a machine-construction industry, etc. Illiteracy has long since been liquidated, which, in pre-Revolutionary Georgia, included 78 per cent of the population.

Could the Georgians, comparing the situation in their republic with the hard situation of the working masses in Turkey, be aspiring to join Turkey? In 1955, Georgia produced 18 times as much steel per person as Turkey. Georgia produces 9 times as much electrical energy per person as Turkey. According to the available 1950 census, 65 per cent of Turkey’s total population is illiterate, and 80 per cent of its women. Georgia has 19 institutions of higher learning which have about 39,000 students; this is 8 times more than in Turkey (for each 1,000 inhabitants). The prosperity of the working people has grown tremendously in Georgia under Soviet rule.

It is clear that, as the economy and culture develop, and as the socialist consciousness of the working masses in Georgia grows, the source from which bourgeois nationalism draws its strength evaporates.

As it developed, there was no nationalistic organization in Georgia. Thousands of innocent people fell victim to willfulness and lawlessness. All of this happened under the “genius” leadership of Stalin, “the great son of the Georgian nation,” as Georgians like to refer to him.

(Animation in the hall.)

The willfulness of Stalin showed itself not only in decisions concerning the internal life of the country but also in the international relations of the Soviet Union.

The July Plenum of the Central Committee studied in detail the reasons for the development of conflict with Yugoslavia. It was a shameful role which Stalin played here. The “Yugoslav affair” contained no problems which could not have been solved through Party discussions among comrades. There was no significant basis for the development of this “affair.” It was completely possible to have prevented the rupture of relations with that country. This does not mean, however, that Yugoslav leaders made no mistakes or had no shortcomings. But these mistakes and shortcomings were magnified in a monstrous manner by Stalin, resulting in the breakoff of relations with a friendly country.

I recall the first days when the conflict between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia began to be blown up artificially. Once, when I came from Kiev to Moscow, I was invited to visit Stalin, who, pointing to the copy of a letter recently sent to [Yugoslavian President Marshal Joseph] Tito, asked me, “Have you read this?”

Not waiting for my reply, he answered, 


“I will shake my little finger 

– and there will be 

no more Tito. He will fall.”


We have paid dearly for this “shaking of the little finger.” This statement reflected Stalin’s mania for greatness, but he acted just that way: “I will shake my little finger – and there will be no Kosior”; “I will shake my little finger once more and Postyshev and Chubar will be no more”; “I will shake my little finger again – and Voznesensky, Kuznetsov and many others will disappear.”

But this did not happen to Tito. No matter how much or how little Stalin shook, not only his little finger but everything else that he could shake, Tito did not fall. Why? The reason was that, in this instance of disagreement with [our] Yugoslav comrades, Tito had behind him a state and a people who had had a serious education in fighting for liberty and independence, a people who gave support to its leaders.

(会议期间恰值元旦,刘少奇和王光美出席了中央办公厅的迎新晚会,但没有像往常一样结伴下场跳舞。在朱德、贺龙等人的劝说下,刘主动找毛作自我批评,并于1月13日下午召集周恩来等17人开了一个党内生活会,征求意见和听取批评。也是在这期间,毛对刘说:


“你有什么了不起,

      我动一个小指头

         就可以把你打倒!”)


You see what Stalin’s mania for greatness led to. He completely lost consciousness of reality. He demonstrated his suspicion and haughtiness not only in relation to individuals in the USSR, but in relation to whole parties and nations.

We have carefully examined the case of Yugoslavia. We have found a proper solution which is approved by the peoples of the Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia as well as by the working masses of all the people’s democracies and by all progressive humanity. The liquidation of [our] abnormal relationship with Yugoslavia was done in the interest of the whole camp of socialism, in the interest of strengthening peace in the whole world.

Let us also recall the “affair of the doctor-plotters.”

(Animation in the hall.)

Actually there was no “affair” outside of the declaration of the woman doctor [Lidiya] Timashuk, who was probably influenced or ordered by someone (after all, she was an unofficial collaborator of the organs of state security) to write Stalin a letter in which she declared that doctors were applying supposedly improper methods of medical treatment.

Such a letter was sufficient for Stalin to reach an immediate conclusion that there are doctor-plotters in the Soviet Union. He issued orders to arrest a group of eminent Soviet medical specialists. He personally issued advice on the conduct of the investigation and the method of interrogation of the arrested persons. He said that academician [V. N. ] Vinogradov should be put in chains, and that another one [of the alleged plotters] should be beaten. The former Minister of State Security, comrade [Semyen] Ignatiev, is present at this Congress as a delegate. Stalin told him curtly, “If you do not obtain confessions from the doctors we will shorten you by a head.”

(Tumult in the hall.)

Stalin personally called the investigative judge, gave him instructions, and advised him on which investigative methods should be used. These methods were simple – beat, beat and, beat again.

Shortly after the doctors were arrested, we members of the Politbiuro received protocols with the doctors’ confessions of guilt. After distributing these protocols, Stalin told us, “You are blind like young kittens. What will happen without me? The country will perish because you do not know how to recognize enemies.”

The case was presented so that no one could verify the facts on which the investigation was based. There was no possibility of trying to verify facts by contacting those who had made the confessions of guilt.

We felt, however, that the case of the arrested doctors was questionable. We knew some of these people personally because they had once treated us. When we examined this “case” after Stalin’s death, we found it to have been fabricated from beginning to end.

This ignominious “case” was set up by Stalin. He did not, however, have the time in which to bring it to an end (as he conceived that end), and for this reason the doctors are still alive. All of them have been rehabilitated. They are working in the same places they were working before. They are treating top individuals, not excluding members of the Government. They have our full confidence; and they execute their duties honestly, as they did before.

In putting together various dirty and shameful cases, a very base role was played by a rabid enemy of our Party, an agent of a foreign intelligence service – Beria, who had stolen into Stalin’s confidence. How could this provocateur have gained such a position in the Party and in the state, so as to become the First Deputy Chair of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union and a Politbiuro member? It has now been established that this villain climbed up the Government ladder over an untold number of corpses.

Were there any signs that Beria was an enemy of the Party? Yes, there were. Already in 1937, at a Central Committee Plenum, former People’s Commissar of Health [Grigory] Kaminsky said that Beria worked for the Musavat intelligence service. But the Plenum had barely concluded when Kaminsky was arrested and then shot. Had Stalin examined Kaminsky’s statement? No, because Stalin believed in Beria, and that was enough for him. And when Stalin believed in anyone or anything, then no one could say anything that was contrary to his opinion. Anyone daring to express opposition would have met the same fate as Kaminsky.

There were other signs, also. The declaration which comrade [A. V.] Snegov made to the Party’s Central Committee isinteresting. (Parenthetically speaking, he was also rehabilitated not long ago, after 17 years in prison camps.) In this declaration, Snegov writes:

“In connection with the proposed rehabilitation of the former Central Committee member, [Lavrenty] Kartvelishvili-Lavrentiev, I have entrusted to the hands of the representative of the Committee of State Security a detailed deposition concerning Beria’s role in the disposition of the Kartvelishvili case and concerning the criminal motives by which Beria was guided.

“In my opinion, it is indispensable to recall an important fact pertaining to this case and to communicate it to the Central Committee, because I did not consider it as proper to include in the investigation documents.

“On October 30, 1931, at a session of the Organizational Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Kartvelishvili, Secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee, made a report. All members of the executive of the Regional Committee were present. Of them I alone am now alive.

“During this session, J. V. Stalin made a motion at the end of his speech concerning the organization of the secretariat of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee composed of the following: First Secretary, Kartvelishvili; Second Secretary, Beria (it was then, for the first time in the Party’s history, that Beria’s name was mentioned as a candidate for a Party position). Kartvelishvili answered that he knew Beria well and for that reason refused categorically to work together with him. Stalin proposed then that this matter be left open and that it be solved in the process of the work itself. Two days later a decision was arrived at that Beria would receive the Party post and that Kartvelishvili would be deported from the Transcaucasus.

“This fact can be confirmed by comrades Mikoyan and Kaganovich, who were present at that session.”

The long, unfriendly relations between Kartvelishvili and Beria were widely known. They date back to the time when comrade Sergo [Ordzhonikidze] was active in the Transcaucasus. Kartvelishvili was the closest assistant of Sergo. The unfriendly relationship impelled Beria to fabricate a “case” against Kartvelishvili. It is characteristic that Kartvelishvili was charged with a terroristic act against Beria in this “case.”

The indictment in the Beria case contains a discussion of his crimes. Some things should, however, be recalled, especially since it is possible that not all delegates to the Congress have read this document. I wish to recall Beria’s bestial disposition of the cases of [Mikhail] Kedrov, [V.] Golubev, and Golubev’s adopted mother, Baturina – persons who wished to inform the Central Committee concerning Beria’s treacherous activity. They were shot without any trial and the sentence was passed ex post facto, after the execution.

Here is what the old Communist, comrade Kedrov, wrote to the Central Committee through comrade [Andrey] Andreyev (comrade Andreyev was then a Central Committee Secretary):

“I am calling to you for help from a gloomy cell of the Lefortovo prison. Let my cry of horror reach your ears; do not remain deaf, take me under your protection; please, help remove the nightmare of interrogations and show that this is all a mistake.

“I suffer innocently. Please believe me. Time will testify to the truth. I am not an agent provocateur of the Tsarist Okhrana. I am not a spy, I am not a member of an anti-Soviet organization of which I am being accused on the basis of denunciations. I am also not guilty of any other crimes against the Party and the Government. I am an old Bolshevik, free of any stain; I have honestly fought for almost 40 years in the ranks of the Party for the good and prosperity of the nation....

“... Today I, a 62-year-old man, am being threatened by the investigative judges with more severe, cruel and degrading methods of physical pressure. They (the judges) are no longer capable of becoming aware of their error and of recognizing that their handling of my case is illegal and impermissible. They try to justify their actions by picturing me as a hardened and raving enemy and are demanding increased repressions. But let the Party know that I am innocent and that there is nothing which can turn a loyal son of the Party into an enemy, even right up to his last dying breath.

“But I have no way out. I cannot divert from myself the hastily approaching new and powerful blows.

“Everything, however, has its limits. My torture has reached the extreme. My health is broken, my strength and my energy are waning, the end is drawing near. To die in a Soviet prison, branded as a vile traitor to the Fatherland – what can be more monstrous for an honest man? And how monstrous all this is! Unsurpassed bitterness and pain grips my heart. No! No! This will not happen; this cannot be, I cry. Neither the Party, nor the Soviet Government, nor the People’s Commissar, L. P. Beria, will permit this cruel, ireparable injustice. I am firmly certain that, given a quiet, objective examination, without any foul rantings, without any anger and without the fearful tortures, it would be easy to prove the baselessness of the charges. I believe deeply that truth and justice will triumph. I believe. I believe.”

The old Bolshevik, comrade Kedrov, was found innocent by the Military Collegium. But, despite this, he was shot at Beria’s order.

(Indignation in the hall.)

Beria also handled cruelly the family of comrade Ordzhonikidze. Why? Because Ordzhonikidze had tried to prevent Beria from realizing his shameful plans. Beria had cleared from his way all persons who could possibly interfere with him. Ordzhonikidze was always an opponent of Beria, which he told to Stalin. Instead of examining this affair and taking appropriate steps, Stalin allowed the liquidation of Ordzhonikidze’s brother and brought Ordzhonikidze himself to such a state that he was forced to shoot himself.

(Indignation in the hall.)

Beria was unmasked by the Party’s Central Committee shortly after Stalin’s death. As a result of particularly detailed legal proceedings, it was established that Beria had committed monstrous crimes and Beria was shot.

The question arises why Beria, who had liquidated tens of thousands of Party and Soviet workers, was not unmasked during Stalin’s life. He was not unmasked earlier because he had utilized very skillfully Stalin’s weaknesses; feeding him with suspicions, he assisted Stalin in everything and acted with his support.

Comrades: The cult of the individual acquired such monstrous size chiefly because Stalin himself, using all conceivable methods, supported the glorification of his own person. This is supported by numerous facts. One of the most characteristic examples of Stalin’s self-glorification and of his lack of even elementary modesty is the edition of his Short Biography, which was published in 1948 (sic).

This book is an expression of the most dissolute flattery, an example of making a man into a godhead, of transforming him into an infallible sage, “the greatest leader, sublime strategist of all times and nations.” Finally, no other words could be found with which to lift Stalin up to the heavens.

We need not give here examples of the loathesome adulation filling this book. All we need to add is that they all were approved and edited by Stalin personally. Some of them were added in his own handwriting to the draft text of the book.

What did Stalin consider essential to write into this book? Did he want to cool the ardor of the flatterers who were composing his Short Biography? No! He marked the very places where he thought that the praise of his services was insufficient. Here are some examples characterizing Stalin’s activity, added in Stalin’s own hand:

“In this fight against the skeptics and capitulators, the Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites and Kamenevites, there was definitely welded together, after Lenin’s death, that leading core of the Party... that upheld the great banner of Lenin, rallied the Party behind Lenin’s behests, and brought the Soviet people onto the broad paths of industrializing the country and collectivizing the rural economy. The leader of this core and the guiding force of the Party and the state was comrade Stalin.”

Thus writes Stalin himself! Then he adds:

“Although he performed his tasks as leader of the Party and the people with consummate skill, and enjoyed the unreserved support of the entire Soviet people, Stalin never allowed his work to be marred by the slightest hint of vanity, conceit or self-adulation.”

Where and when could a leader so praise himself? Is this worthy of a leader of the Marxist-Leninist type? No. Precisely against this did Marx and Engels take such a strong position. This always was sharply condemned also by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

In the draft text of [Stalin’s] book appeared the following sentence: “Stalin is the Lenin of today.” This sentence appeared to Stalin to be too weak. Thus, in his own handwriting, he changed it to read: “Stalin is the worthy continuer of Lenin’s work, or, as it is said in our Party, Stalin is the Lenin of today.” You see how well it is said, not by the nation but by Stalin himself.

It is possible to offer many such self-praising appraisals written into the draft text of that book in Stalin’s hand. He showers himself especially generously with praises regarding his military genius and his talent for strategy. I will cite one more insertion made by Stalin on the theme: “The advanced Soviet science of war received further development,” he writes, “at Comrade Stalin’s hands. Comrade Stalin elaborated the theory of the permanent operating factors that decide the issue of wars, of active defense and the laws of counteroffensive and offensive, of the cooperation of all services and arms in modern warfare, of the role of big tank masses and air forces in modern war, and of the artillery as the most formidable of the armed services. At various stages of the war, Stalin’s genius found correct solutions that took into account all the circumstances of the situation.”

(Movement in the hall.)

Further, Stalin writes: “Stalin’s military mastership was displayed both in defense and on offense. Comrade Stalin’s genius enabled him to divine the enemy’s plans and defeat them. The battles in which comrade Stalin directed the Soviet armies are brilliant examples of operational military skill.”

This is how Stalin was praised as a strategist. Who did this? Stalin himself, not in his role as a strategist but in the role of an author-editor, one of the main creators of his [own] self-adulatory biography. Such, comrades, are the facts. Or should be said, rather, the shameful facts.

One additional fact from the same Short Biography of Stalin: As is known, the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Short Course was written by a commission of the Party Central Committee.

This book, parenthetically, was also permeated with the cult of the individual and was written by a designated group of authors. This fact was reflected in the following formulation on the proof copy of the Short Biography of Stalin: “A commission of the Central Committee, All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), under the direction of comrade Stalin and with his most active personal participation, has prepared a History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Short Course.”

But even this phrase did not satisfy Stalin: The following sentence replaced it in the final version of the Short Biography: “In 1938, the book History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Short Course appeared, written by comrade Stalin and approved by a commission of the Central Committee, All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).” Can one add anything more?

(Animation in the hall.)

As you see, a surprising metamorphosis changed the work created by a group into a book written by Stalin. It is not necessary to state how and why this metamorphosis took place.

A pertinent question comes to our mind: If Stalin is the author of this book, why did he need to praise the person of Stalin so much and to transform the whole post-October historical period of our glorious Communist Party solely into an action of “the Stalin genius”?

Did this book properly reflect the efforts of the Party in the socialist transformation of the country, in the construction of socialist society, in the industrialization and collectivization of the country, and also other steps taken by the Party which undeviatingly traveled the path outlined by Lenin? This book speaks principally about Stalin, about his speeches, about his reports. Everything without the smallest exception is tied to his name.

And when Stalin himself asserts that he himself wrote the Short Course, this calls at least for amazement. Can a Marxist-Leninist thus write about himself, praising his own person to the heavens?

Or let us take the matter of the Stalin Prizes.

(Movement in the hall.)

Not even the Tsars created prizes which they named after themselves.

Stalin recognized as the best a text of the national anthem of the Soviet Union which contains not a word about the Communist Party; it contains, however, the following unprecedented praise of Stalin: “Stalin brought us up in loyalty to the people. He inspired us to great toil and deeds.”

In these lines of the anthem, the whole educational, directional and inspirational activity of the great Leninist Party is ascribed to Stalin. This is, of course, a clear deviation from Marxism-Leninism, a clear debasing and belittling of the role of the Party. We should add for your information that the Presidium of the Central Committee has already passed a resolution concerning the composition of a new text of the anthem. which will reflect the role of the people and the role of the Party.

(Loud, prolonged applause.)

And was it without Stalin’s knowledge that many of the largest enterprises and towns were named after him? Was it without his knowledge that Stalin monuments were erected in the whole country – these “memorials to the living”? It is a fact that Stalin himself had signed on July 2, 1951 a resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers concerning the erection on the Volga-Don Canal of an impressive monument to Stalin; on September 4 of the same year he issued an order making 33 tons of copper available for the construction of this impressive monument.

Anyone who has visited the Stalingrad area must have seen the huge statue which is being built there, and that on a site which hardly any people frequent. Huge sums were spent to build it at a time when people of this area had lived since the war in huts. Consider, yourself, was Stalin right when he wrote in his biography that “...he did not allow in himself... even a shadow of conceit, pride, or self-adoration”?

At the same time Stalin gave proofs of his lack of respect for Lenin’s memory. It is not a coincidence that, despite the decision taken over 30 years ago to build a Palace of Soviets as a monument to Vladimir Ilyich, this palace was not built, its construction was always postponed and the project allowed to lapse.

We cannot forget to recall the Soviet Government resolution of August 14, 1925 concerning “the founding of Lenin prizes for educational work.” This resolution was published in the press, but until this day there are no Lenin prizes. This, too, should be corrected.

(Tumultuous, prolonged applause.)

During Stalin’s life – thanks to known methods which I have mentioned, and quoting facts, for instance. from the Short Biography of Stalin – all events were explained as if Lenin played only a secondary role, even during the October Socialist Revolution. In many films and in many literary works the figure of Lenin was incorrectly presented and inadmissibly depreciated.

Stalin loved to see the film The Unforgettable Year of 1919, in which he was shown on the steps of an armored train and where he was practically vanquishing the foe with his own saber. Let Klimenty Yefremovich [Voroshilov], our dear friend, find the necessary courage and write the truth about Stalin; after all, he knows how Stalin had fought. It will be difficult for comrade Voroshilov to undertake this, but it would be good if he did it. Everyone will approve of it, both the people and the Party. Even his grandsons will thank him.

(Prolonged applause.)

In speaking about the events of the October Revolution and about the Civil War, the impression was created that Stalin always played the main role, as if everywhere and always Stalin had suggested to Lenin what to do and how to do it. However, this is slander of Lenin.

(Prolonged applause.)

I will probably not sin against the truth when I say that 99 per cent of the persons present here heard and knew very little about Stalin before the year 1924, while Lenin was known to all. He was known to the whole Party, to the whole nation, from children all the way up to old men.

(Tumultuous, prolonged applause.)

All this has to be thoroughly revised so that history, literature and the fine arts properly reflect V. I. Lenin’s role and the great deeds of our Communist Party and of the Soviet people – a creative people.

(Applause.)

Comrades! The cult of the individual caused the employment of faulty principles in Party work and in economic activity. It brought about rude violation of internal Party and Soviet democracy, sterile administration, deviations of all sorts, cover-ups of shortcomings, and varnishings of reality. Our nation bore forth many flatterers and specialists in false optimism and deceit.

We should also not forget that, due to the numerous arrests of Party, Soviet and economic leaders, many workers began to work uncertainly, showed overcautiousness, feared all which was new, feared their own shadows, and began to show less initiative in their work.

Take, for instance, Party and Soviet resolutions. They were prepared in a routine manner, often without considering the concrete situation. This went so far that Party workers, even during the smallest sessions, read [prepared] speeches. All this produced the danger of formalizing the Party and Soviet work and of bureaucratizing the whole apparatus.

Stalin’s reluctance to consider life’s realities, and the fact that he was not aware of the real state of affairs in the provinces, can be illustrated by his direction of agriculture.

All those who interested themselves even a little in the national situation saw the difficult situation in agriculture, but Stalin never even noted it. Did we tell Stalin about this? Yes, we told him, but he did not support us. Why? Because Stalin never traveled anywhere, did not meet city and kolkhoz workers. He did not know the actual situation in the provinces.

He knew the country and agriculture only from films. And these films dressed up and beautified the existing situation in agriculture. Many films pictured kolkhoz life such that [farmhouse] tables groaned from the weight of turkeys and geese. Evidently, Stalin thought that it was actually so.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin looked at life differently. He always was close to the people. He used to receive peasant delegates and often spoke at factory gatherings. He used to visit villages and talk with the peasants.

Stalin separated himself from the people and never went anywhere. This lasted ten years. The last time he visited a village was in January, 1928, when he visited Siberia in connection with grain procurements. How then could he have known the situation in the provinces?

Once, [Stalin] was told during a discussion that our situation on the land was a difficult one and that the situation in cattle breeding and meat production was especially bad. [From this] there came a commission charged with the preparation of a resolution called “Measures toward the further development of animal husbandry in kolkhozes and sovkhozes.” We worked out this project.

Of course, our proposals at that time did not cover all the possibilities. However we did chart ways in which animal husbandry on kolkhozes and sovkhozes could be boosted. We proposed to raise livestock prices so as to create material incentives for kolkhoz, MTS [machine-tractor station] and sovkhoz workers in developing breeding. But our project was not accepted, In February 1953 it was laid aside entirely.

What is more, while reviewing this project Stalin proposed that the taxes paid by kolkhozes and by kolkhoz workers should be raised by 40 billion rubles. According to him, the peasants were well off and a kolkhoz worker would need to sell only one more chicken to pay his tax in full.

Think about what this implied. Forty billion rubles is a sum which [these workers] did not realize for all the products which they sold to the State. In 1952, for instance, kolkhozes and kolkhoz workers received 26,280 million rubles for all products delivered and sold to the State.

Did Stalin’s position, then, rest on data of any sort whatever? Of course not. In such cases facts and figures did not interest him. If Stalin said anything, it meant it was so – after all, he was a “genius,” and a genius does not need to count, he only needs to look and can immediately tell how it should be. When he expresses his opinion, everyone has to repeat it and to admire his wisdom.

But how much wisdom was contained in the proposal to raise the agricultural tax by 40 billion rubles? None, absolutely none, because the proposal was not based on an actual assessment of the situation but on the fantastic ideas of a person divorced from reality.

We are currently beginning slowly to work our way out of a difficult agricultural situation. The speeches of the delegates to the Twentieth Congress please us all. We are glad that many delegates have delivered speeches [to the effect] that conditions exist for fulfilling the sixth Five-Year Plan for animal husbandry [early]: not in five years, but within two to three years. We are certain that the commitments of the new Five-Year Plan will be accomplished successfully.

(Prolonged applause.)

Comrades! If we sharply criticize today the cult of the individual which was so widespread during Stalin’s life, and if we speak about the many negative phenomena generated by this cult (which is so alien to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism), some may ask: How could it be? Stalin headed the Party and the country for 30 years and many victories were gained during his lifetime. Can we deny this? In my opinion, the question can be asked in this manner only by those who are blinded and hopelessly hypnotized by the cult of the individual, only by those who do not understand the essence of the revolution and of the Soviet state, only by those who do not understand, in a Leninist manner, the role of the Party and of the nation in the development of the Soviet society.

[Our] Socialist Revolution was attained by the working class and by the poor peasantry with the partial support of middle-class peasants. It was attained by the people under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party. Lenin’s great service consisted of the fact that he created a militant Party of the working class, but he was armed with Marxist understanding of the laws of social development and with the science of proletarian victory in the fight with capitalism, and he steeled this Party in the crucible of the revolutionary struggle of the masses of the people.

During this fight the Party consistently defended the interests of the people and became its experienced leader. [The Party] led the working masses to power, to the creation of the first socialist state. You remember well the wise words of Lenin: that the Soviet state is strong because of the awareness of the masses that history is created by the millions and tens of millions of people.

Our historical victories were attained thanks to the Party’s organizational work, to the many provincial organizations, and to the self-sacrificing work of our great nation. These victories are the result of the great drive and activity of the nation and of the Party as a whole. They are not at all the fruit of Stalin’s leadership, which is how the situation was pictured during the period of the cult of the individual.

If we are to consider this matter as Marxists and as Leninists, then we have to state unequivocally that the leadership practices which came into being during the last years of Stalin’s life became a serious obstacle in the path of Soviet social development. Stalin often failed for months to take up some unusually important problems, concerning the life of the Party and of the State, whose solution could not be postponed. During Stalin’s leadership our peaceful relations with other nations were often threatened, because one-man decisions could cause, and often did cause, great complications.

In the past [few] years, [after] we managed to free ourselves of the harmful practice of the cult of the individual and took several proper steps in terms of [both] internal and external policies, everyone [has been able to see] how activity has grown before our very eyes, how the creative activity of the broad working masses has developed, and how favorably all this has acted upon economic and cultural development.

(Applause.)

Some comrades may ask us: Where were the members of the Politbiuro? Why did they not assert themselves against the cult of the individual in time? And why is this being done only now? First of all, we have to consider the fact that the members of the Politbiuro viewed these matters in a different way at different times. Initially, many of them backed Stalin actively because he was one of the strongest Marxists and his logic, his strength and his will greatly influenced [Party] cadres and Party work.

It is known that after Lenin’s death, especially during the first years, Stalin actively fought for Leninism against the enemies of Leninist theory and against those who deviated. Beginning with Leninist theory, the Party, with its Central Committee at the head, started on a great scale work on the socialist industrialization of the country, on agricultural collectivization, and on cultural revolution. At that time Stalin gained great popularity, sympathy and support. The Party had to fight those who tried to lead the country away from the correct Leninist path. It had to fight Trotskyites, Zinovievites and rightists, and bourgeois nationalists. This fight was indispensable.

Later, however, Stalin, abusing his power more and more, began to fight eminent Party and Government leaders and to use terroristic methods against honest Soviet people. As we have already shown, Stalin thus handled such eminent Party and State leaders as Kosior, Rudzutak, Eikhe, Postyshev and many others.

Attempts to oppose groundless suspicions and charges resulted in the opponent’s falling victim to the repression. This characterized the fall of comrade Postyshev.

In one of his [exchanges] Stalin expressed his dissatisfaction with Postyshev and asked him, “What are you actually?”

Postyshev answered clearly, “I am a Bolshevik, comrade Stalin, a Bolshevik.”

At first, this assertion was considered to show [merely] a lack of respect for Stalin. Later it was considered a harmful act. Eventually it resulted in Postyshev’s annihilation and castigation as an “enemy of the people.”

In the situation which then prevailed, I often talked with Nikolay Alexandrovich Bulganin. Once when we two were traveling in a car, he said, “It has happened sometimes that a man goes to Stalin on his invitation as a friend. And when he sits with Stalin, he does not know where he will be sent next – home or to jail.”

It is clear that such conditions put every member of the Politbiuro in a very difficult situation. And, when we also consider the fact that in the last years Central Committee Plenary sessions were not convened and that sessions of the Politbiuro occurred only occasionally, from time to time, then we will understand how difficult it was for any member of the Politbiuro to take a stand against one or another unjust or improper procedure, against serious errors and shortcomings in leadership practices.

As we have already shown, many decisions were taken either by one person or in a roundabout way, without collective discussion. The sad fate of Politbiuro member comrade Voznesensky, who fell victim to Stalin’s repressions, is known to all. Characteristically, the decision to remove him from the Politbiuro was never discussed but was reached in a devious fashion. In the same way came the decision regarding Kuznetsov’s and Rodionov’s removals from their posts.

The importance of the Central Committee’s Politbiuro was reduced and its work was disorganized by the creation within the Politbiuro of various commissions – the so-called “quintets,” “sextets,” “septets” and “nonets” Here is, for instance, a Politbiuro resolution from October 3, 1946:

“Stalin’s proposal:

“1.The Politbiuro Commission for Foreign Affairs (’Sextet’) is to concern itself in the future, in addition to foreign affairs, also with matters of internal construction and domestic policy.

“2.The Sextet is to add to its roster the Chairman of the State Commission of Economic Planning of the USSR, comrade Voznesensky, and is to be known as a Septet.

“Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee, J. Stalin.”

What [sophistry]!

(Laughter in the hall.)

It is clear that the creation within the Politbiuro of this type of commissions – “quintets,” “sextets,” “septets” and “nonets” – was against the principle of collective leadership. The result of this was that some members of the Politbiuro were in this way kept away from participation in reaching the most important state matters.

One of the oldest members of our Party, Klimenty Yefremovich Voroshilov, found himself in an almost impossible situation. For several years he was actually deprived of the right of participation in Politbiuro sessions. Stalin forbade him to attend Politbiuro sessions and to receive documents. When the Politbiuro was in session and comrade Voroshilov heard about it, he telephoned each time and asked whether he would be allowed to attend. Sometimes Stalin permitted it, but always showed his dissatisfaction.

Because of his extreme suspicion, Stalin toyed also with the absurd and ridiculous suspicion that Voroshilov was an English agent.

(Laughter in the hall.)

It’s true – an English agent. A special tap was installed in his home to listen to what was said there.

(Indignation in the hall.)

By unilateral decision, Stalin had also separated one other man from the work of the Politbiuro – Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev. This was one of the most unbridled acts of willfulness.

Let us consider the first Central Committee Plenum after the 19th Party Congress. Stalin, in his talk at the Plenum, characterized Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov and Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan and suggested that these old workers of our Party were guilty of some baseless charges. We cannot rule out the possibility that had Stalin remained at the helm for another several months, Comrades Molotov and Mikoyan probably would not have delivered any speeches at this [20th] Congress.

Stalin evidently had plans to finish off the older members of the Politbiuro. He often stated that Politbiuro members should be replaced by new ones. His proposal after the 19th Congress to elect 25 persons to the Central Committee Presidium was aimed at the removal of old Politbiuro members and at bringing in less experienced persons so that these would extol him in all sorts of ways.

We can assume that this was also a design for the future annihilation of the old Politbiuro members and, in this way, a cover for all shameful acts of Stalin, acts which we are now considering.

Comrades! So as not to repeat errors of the past, the Central Committee has declared itself resolutely against the cult of the individual. We consider that Stalin was extolled to excess. However, in the past Stalin undoubtedly performed great services to the Party, to the working class and to the international workers’ movement.

This question is complicated by the fact that all this which we have just discussed was done during Stalin’s life under his leadership and with his concurrence; here Stalin was convinced that this was necessary for the defense of the interests of the working classes against the plotting of enemies and against the attack of the imperialist camp.

He saw this from the position of the interest of the working class, of the interest of the laboring people, of the interest of the victory of socialism and communism. We cannot say that these were the deeds of a giddy despot. He considered that this should be done in the interest of the Party, of the working masses, in the name of the defense of the revolution’s gains. In this lies the whole tragedy!

Comrades! Lenin had often stressed that modesty is an absolutely integral part of a real Bolshevik. Lenin himself was the living personification of the greatest modesty. We cannot say that we have been following this Leninist example in all respects.

It is enough to point out that many towns, factories and industrial enterprises, kolkhozes and sovkhozes, Soviet institutions and cultural institutions have been referred to by us with a title if I may express it so – of private property of the names of these or those Government or Party leaders who were still active and in good health. Many of us participated in the action of assigning our names to various towns, rayons, enterprises and kolkhozes. We must correct this.

(Applause.)

But this should be done calmly and slowly. The Central Committee will discuss this matter and consider it carefully in order to prevent errors and excesses. I can remember how Ukraine learned about Kossior’s arrest. Kiev radio used to start its programs thus: “This is Radio Kosior.” When one day the programs began without mentioning Kosior, everyone was quite certain that something had happened to him and that he probably had been arrested.

Thus, if today we begin to change the signs everywhere and to rename things, people will think that these comrades in whose honor the given enterprises, kolkhozes or cities are named also met some bad fate and that they have also been arrested.

(Animation in the hall.)

How is the authority and the importance of this or that leader judged? On the basis of how many towns, industrial enterprises and factories, kolkhozes and sovkhozes carry his name. Is it not about time that we eliminate this “private property” and “nationalize” the factories, the industrial enterprises, the kolkhozes and the sovkhozes? (Laughter, applause, voices: “That is right.”) This will benefit our cause. After all, the cult of the individual is manifested also in this way.

We should, in all seriousness, consider the question of the cult of the individual. We cannot let this matter get out of the Party, especially not to the press. It is for this reason that we are considering it here at a closed Congress session. We should know the limits; we should not give ammunition to the enemy; we should not wash our dirty linen before their eyes. I think that the delegates to the Congress will understand and assess properly all these proposals.

(Tumultuous applause.)

Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all; we must draw the proper conclusions concerning both ideological-theoretical and practical work. It is necessary for this purpose:

First, in a Bolshevik manner to condemn and to eradicate the cult of the individual as alien to Marxism-Leninism and not consonant with the principles of Party leadership and the norms of Party life, and to fight inexorably all attempts at bringing back this practice in one form or another.

To return to and actually practice in all our ideological work the most important theses of Marxist-Leninist science about the people as the creator of history and as the creator of all material and spiritual good of humanity, about the decisive role of the Marxist Party in the revolutionary fight for the transformation of society, about the victory of communism.

In this connection we will be forced to do much work in order to examine critically from the Marxist-Leninist viewpoint and to correct the widely spread erroneous views connected with the cult of the individual in the spheres of history, philosophy, economy and of other sciences, as well as in literature and the fine arts. It is especially necessary that in the immediate future we compile a serious textbook of the history of our Party which will be edited in accordance with scientific Marxist objectivism, a textbook of the history of Soviet society, a book pertaining to the events of the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War.

Second, to continue systematically and consistently the work done by the Party’s Central Committee during the last years, a work characterized by minute observation in all Party organizations, from the bottom to the top, of the Leninist principles of Party leadership, characterized, above all, by the main principle of collective leadership, characterized by the observance of the norms of Party life described in the statutes of our Party, and, finally, characterized by the wide practice of criticism and self-criticism.

Third, to restore completely the Leninist principles of Soviet socialist democracy, expressed in the Constitution of the Soviet Union, to fight willfulness of individuals abusing their power. The evil caused by acts violating revolutionary socialist legality which have accumulated during a long time as a result of the negative influence of the cult of the individual has to be completely corrected.

Comrades! The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has manifested with a new strength the unshakable unity of our Party, its cohesiveness around the Central Committee, its resolute will to accomplish the great task of building communism.

(Tumultuous applause.)

And the fact that we present in all their ramifications the basic problems of overcoming the cult of the individual which is alien to Marxism-Leninism, as well as the problem of liquidating its burdensome consequences, is evidence of the great moral and political strength of our Party.

(Prolonged applause.)

We are absolutely certain that our Party, armed with the historical resolutions of the 20th Congress, will lead the Soviet people along the Leninist path to new successes, to new victories.

(Tumultuous, prolonged applause.)

Long live the victorious banner of our Party – Leninism!

(Tumultuous, prolonged applause ending in ovation. All rise.)

Image result for 1953年天安门追悼斯大林同志

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陳小謙

陳小謙 1 year ago


斯大林是中华人民共和国国父 !


斯大林颂  中央乐团合唱


作词:   伊纽什金

作曲:   亚历山大罗夫

演唱:   中国中央乐团合唱团


从边疆到边疆,沿着高山峻岭,那自由的雄鹰飞翔的地方。为斯大林英明领袖,

我们亲爱的领袖,人民编了美丽的歌,同声来歌唱!  为斯大林英明领袖,

我们亲爱的领袖,人民编了美丽的歌,同声来歌唱!


这歌声的传扬,赛过小鸟飞翔,让全世界压迫者听了失魂丧胆。这歌声飞扬,

越过一切的境界。不论是岗哨和国界都不能阻挡!这歌声飞扬,越过一切的境界,

不论是岗哨和国界都不能阻挡!



      鸿雁  醉人的小提琴手 石野雪峰 1080p


                      女人花 

最美童声!5岁小女孩一首《雨花石》爆红网络,太好听了!

出发 В путь 苏军阿列克桑德罗夫红旗歌舞团演唱

路漫漫 [ 俄 ]  Дорогой длинною 娜妮·布列格瓦泽 演唱


Slavic Soul at Sava Centre, Belgrade - Manca Izmajlova & Russian State Symphony Cinema Orchestra


                     Helene  Fischer  Live



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